Tonight, the West Seattle High School and Chief Sealth International High School girls’ varsity basketball teams face off. Last night (Tuesday), the boys played. A look ahead, as we interview the Sealth girls’ coach, plus a look back at last night’s boys’ games – after the jump:

THE GIRLS:

Despite losing players to injury and a few close games this season, Chief Sealth girls’ varsity basketball coach Katie Maris says the program is well on the way to consistency.

Even at a record of 4-11 so far this season, she says that’s two more wins than last year. She credits a far-bigger turnout for basketball, which she said also surprised her: “They came out in groups, they came out with their friends.” As the season winds to a close this week, she’s working with nine JV and 13 varsity players. That’s a drop from the first week of practice, but she says it’s enough to create a core to work with in the future. While still working on what she calls the step to get ready, she says that this year’s sophomores are greatly improved from last year and she believes that it’s the consistency of having a regular coach that’s made that happen.

After being a volunteer coach for a few years, Maris became the fulltime coach just prior to the start of the current school year. She says that being the head coach is giving her the opportunity to put her program in place, which will include keeping the team together for summer and fall clinics prior to next season. She says that with some pride, as she’s a 2001 Sealth graduate and a former SSCC student who played on the combined community college team that played its games at North Seattle Community College.

Next up on her team’s schedule is a rematch with West Seattle tonight. The last time the two teams met Sealth lost the game in the last seven seconds. As you can see here, she says West Seattle will face a somewhat different team this time.

They’ll end the season against Rainier Beach Friday night.

THE BOYS:

The Sealth boys also will play RB on Friday, but first, it was their last scheduled home game last night, vs. West Seattle. It was preceded with Coach Colin Slingsby talking about his seniors, including their achievements off the court:

Prior to the game Coach Slingsby also introduced 6-7 senior Abdi Mohamed as the tallest player he had ever coached. Abdi was also the leading scorer on the night with 16 points, and it was his rebounding and shot blocking that led his team to an 82-44 win.

As you can see here, Sealth used a swarming defense, which contained the Wildcats and forced West Seattle into a series of turnovers.

West Seattle’s top scorer was sophomore Vidal Griffin II, who had 15 points, three of those coming from a very long-range jump shot. He was followed by another sophomore, La Trey Newsome, with 11. Also in double digits for Sealth were senior Keon Lewis with 13 points, and senior D’Nique Harris-Welch with 11.

Sealth ends the regular season playing at Rainier Beach on Friday night. (UPDATE) West Seattle closes the season out the year at home against Bainbridge on Friday night.