There is a lot of season left for these Decatur Gators and second-year head coach Leon Hatch trusts his team will do OK in it if some things go according to plan like their league, home opening game win -- taming the Emerald Ridge Jaguars quickly at Federal Way Memorial Stadium Thursday.
The final score was 31-12, but the Jaguars, the mascot chosen of the biggest cat in North America, scored a late touchdown and it was 18-6 at halftime and would have been 18-0 but for a freak lineman interception of the Decatur QB's throw and then a run in for a touchdown for the Jaguars with a minute left in the second quarter to break their goose egg total.
What stood out from this first season game, coach?
"Just overall team play," said Hatch, who comes to the Gators' program from coaching Mount Tahoma High School in Tacoma and taking them from a winless team -- or close to it -- his first year at Mount Tahoma to a playoff calibre team his last in 2007.
"We had some kids step up," said Hatch, who didn't say but several players played in place of ineligible players who did not have enough practices in or another similar exclusion keeping them from this game.
Actually, the Gators quarterback is who did say many players usually in the game were not in there this first league win of the season.
"We had 18 ineligible players," said senior quarterback Alex Bykovskiy, who snapped up a lot of the headlines, including throwing for two of the Gators' five scores and running in another. "Six were starters out. Everyone else that played did their job and we came out with a 'W'."
That is a lot of players out, but Bykovskiy, starting with a keeper for a touchdown, ran the ball in from the 5-yard line to make it 6-0, Gators, with 5:45 left on the Del Taco first quarter scoreboard clock.
"Alex had a pretty good game," said Hatch. "He managed the offense well."
So, after one score, were the Gators done, or maybe good for one more this opener?
Oh no!
And that includes the fans (not done), who were just getting started, literally, starting to bounce up and down, going side to side. There were many Gator fans, including a mighty good size student section. They looked like they were going bananas up there.
But it was only the first quarter and this is a school with one playoff appearance back in 2004 and not many appearances before that, ever.
Well, fact is, the kids maybe sense something for this southwest Federal Way located school, who were all cooly warming up their legs. And, voices. For a coming onslaught of scores and good defensive plays this game, the fans ate this game up, lively participating throughout.
Fans are great?
"They are," said Hatch. "They (the players) see those guys here and it pumps them up. And they (the fans) get to see these guys working hard."
The Gators caused five turnovers in this game, and their quick play at the line -- probably combined with some ineptitude of the Jaguars defensive coordination -- forced something like 15 penalties, mostly false starts, for the Jags.
Bykovskiy threw for something like 250 yards, too.
So that's something for these fans to cheer about and it was certainly one of the things the fans were cheering about as Bykovskiy looked deft passing the ball, smooth throwing with good forward motion.
But Bykovskiy, besides saying, "I worked hard this summer," said that the credit for his fun and good stats at QB came from a certain group lining up in front of him, protecting him, opening up holes for him and the running backs like Clark Colvin and Jung Jooney and giving him time to make nice passes to wide receivers like Cary Carver. They get the most credit, he said.
"The offensive line stepped up," said Bykovskiy, who was happy to name them.
"Brandon Selinga, Matt Turner, Conner Schilling, Richard Pio, Mitch Faagi, Jovan Washington," he said.
At first, the Jags looked like they might get back into the picture as after the Gators scored again on back-to-back bad and good plays (in that order) from Carver, who fumbled a punt return with 3:00 on the scoreboard in the first quarter. But then the very next play, on the Jags' first and 10 from the Gators' 40-yard line, Carver intercepted the ball and went to the Jags' 17-yard line before being tackled. Six plays later, the Gators scored on a 4-yard Bykovskiy to Colvin pass that made it 12-0. The Gators missing their second extra point try kept them from having those two extra points.
Then, after stopping the Jaguars on their next possession without giving them one first down, the Gators scored again on a Carver 7-yard run into the end zone, making it 18-0. The drive took four plays, went 15 yards, and 1:49 still showed on the first quarter clock.
So this game had wipeout written all over it at this point, but then the Jags, after going four and out, again, were lucky as a Bykovskiy pass from the line of scrimmage was intercepted by a linebacker who caught it from point-blank range and went in for a score and cut the margin to 18-6.
All that served to do was make this game a little more competitive for a bit. A short bit.
The Gators came out of halftime and scored, with Carver doing a nice bootleg play on a pass from Bykovskiy going in 80 yards and it was 25-6. The score only got worse for the Jaguars one more time as kicker Mike Klavuhn, the guy that missed two extra points for the Gators already in this game, came sweeping around the left side and scored from 10 yards out, making it 31-6, with about five minutes left in the game.
Now, it maybe hard to see how a guy can muff a punt return -- like Carver's fumble -- that could have been huge momentum
for a foe, and then come right back and bounce one in on an interception, as Carver did. But that really speaks of what kind of coach Hatch is.
Carver made a bad play one play and the next a good one in this game. Usually that can take a kid right out of his game, and, the game, literally.
"After he made the mistake, he knew the coaching staff trusted him," said Hatch.
It's a big word, "trust."
"Yeah, at Corvallis (football camp in spring), that was our theme. We wanted to be able to trust each other," said Hatch.
Why is trust so big a word for you guys?
"It describes the spirit of our team. When you look at X's and O's, we have to trust each other."
Hatch trusted Bykovskiy from the start of this season to QB them in the tough SPSL South Division and Bykovskiy only had one game uner his belt to end last season, going against K-M. How did Bykovskiy look in that game throwing the ball in his debut?
"I think I passed for zero yards," said Bykovskiy, maybe kidding a little on the actual number, but probably not far off.
"That was a day it was pouring rain."
So why are you at QB?
"I've been working very hard this past summer," said Bykovskiy, who quickly added. "But it is a whole team effort."
But a great big first win. You guys now can just whoop it up and coast the rest of the season can't you? What, expect about five more wins like easy as pooling gravy into a mashed potatoes crater on your plate?
"We got to be humble, put this away right away and get better and better," said Bykovskiy.
"We've only been to state once or something."
I know, I was there, back in 2004, when Jason Bressler was running the ball hard and Darren Harris was quarterback.
Point is, it's been a long time and hopefully it's coming back again for this area school. With straight concentration for Bykovskiy's receivers on the ball, with the defense doing good things, like the constant pressures in this game from the likes of Washington, and Bykovskiy, too, made a few tackles, like 10, including a couple play-saver open-field ones. And, with the RBs and DBs doing their job, this team could be better than last year's close to last place finish in its league. And the year before that and that and that.
"The guys executed and trusted teammates," said Hatch.
Guess we will leave it at that.

AUBURN 42, Federal Way 7
Junior quarterback Nick Tanielu had a banner day for the Eagles in Thursday season-opening action against Auburn, despite what turned out to be a 42-7 loss to the highly-touted Trojans.
Tanielu completed 21 of 34 passes for 223 yards and scored the only Federal Way touchdown.
The Eagles return to action Saturday when they visit Emerald Ridge at Puyallup's Sparks Stadium for a 7 p.m. non-division game.