Tie game! Loss! Tie game!

Poor Beamer. Undefeated until “that” happened.

For a nationally ranked team by ESPN (No. 14) this 2008 season, it’s been a tough 2 1/2 weeks for the Todd Beamer Titans, who not only lost their national ranking but probably the state-best ranking, too, with this latest setback to, of all teams, their rival, Decatur, tying them, 1-1, at Federal Way Stadium Thursday.

Beamer’s a marked team for sure. Everyone wants to beat a winner and the Titans were 9-0, and ESPN-good before a tie to Emerald Ridge, 2-2, on Oct. 9, and, then a loss to Graham Kapowsin, 1-0, Oct. 23. And now this tie.

The Titans play host to Kentwood, the SPSL North No.1 seed, while the Gators go up against a rival, Thomas Jefferson, or Tahoma. Both the Gators and the Puyallup Vikings tied with 9-5-2 SPSL South records.

That said, let’s get back to this stuff about the Titans. From stardom to stardust, from a Washington State No.1 ranking in 4A girls soccer through mid-season, including being Top 25 ESPN soccer-ranked in the U.S.A., to a recent 4-1-2 mark their last seven games.

What happened?

“They want to beat you,” said Carrie Hentschell, whose team suffered the first tie to ER (11-2-3), who is at the No. 2 seed from the Titans’ SPSL South 4A league. And that was an OK tie, all things considered, and ER was a quality team. But the loss came to a team that just made it into the playoffs. That team would be Graham-Kapowsin, who finished the season 8-6-2. So that team was really not a team the Titans should have had any trouble with, and didn’t the first season meeting -- a 3-0 Beamer shutout.

“It puts a target on our back, our front, and on our heels,” said Titans head coach Carrie Hentschell, fresh off leading this team to second place in the state, losing to Eastlake 3-2, in a shootout last November.

The game versus Decatur was eerily familiar, scorewise anyway, to the G-K one, where the Gators got beat soundly, 4-1, by the Titans the first time this season these two met on Oct. 4. And now this time, a tie.

The Gators came out ready to go it’s more than fair to say, scoring on their first possession of the first half. Kicking off, the ball went quickly lateral to freshman Ashley Graves, who did a fancy spin move before passing downfield a lead ball outside to fellow frosh Abby McFaul, who dribbled into a defender with the ball. The ball bounced into the defender and McFaul and went McFaul’s way. She chased down the ball rolling toward the goalline and crossed a beautiful, easy-to-control, low line-drive into the middle for senior captain Sara Isaac, playing forward. Isaac ripped it, point-blank, from six-yards out, standing in wait perfectly inside the danger zone. That made it 1-0 Gators 15 seconds off the Del Taco scoreboard, to be exact.

The two teams played pretty back-and-forth the rest of the half, with shots tied, 5-5, on goal, but just no scores. Big scorer Holland Crook, who leads her team in goals with 18, with five assists but Audrey Sullivan of ER has 21 goals and nine assists to rank No. 1 in that department. Goals was Crook’s department last year. She did lead her league and was the MVP.

“She was last year’s player of the year,” said Hentschell.

She was, but she had players around her, like her sister, Jordan, and Nicole Peterson -- who could pass the ball forward most excellently, playing center mid spots along with Jordan Salisbury, also a ball-control whiz on the backline. All three graduated following last year’s great season.

So, ball control in the midfield was not good for the Titans in this one, where Crook was playing in the first half. In fact, she touched the ball, four, maybe five times in the first half. Total!

“That was so frustrating,” said Crook.

Crook did get going in the second half in this game, much like how the Gators scored their goal early in a half. The Titans scored three minutes into the second half, taking a pass from Tiara Fentress. She touched the ball a few more times, too, but when she actually did touch it there were players like Hanna Isaac, who contained her and did not fall for her strikingly good moves before a lethal shot.

“Hanna marked her great the whole game,” said Decatur coach Christy Gross.

“They did a good job,” said Crook.

How would you combat that?

“I should have gone and looked for the ball more,” said Crook.

Maybe so, but the Gators’ defense was there to really give Crook troubles no matter what she did, with or without the ball.

Sara Isaac, who had been out the first Gators game in the 4-1 loss was in this one and she is a very strong player along with Carissa Frazier in the back and Jennifer Kanesta.

Team defense was very good for you against Crook, Megan Miller and the Titans?

“Yes, it was,” said Gross.

These teams played well. Todd Beamer outshot the Gators, 4-1, in the second half.