Weaknesses on collaborative efforts dropped confidence levels on Thursday when Class 4A Decatur lost a 55-26 non-league girls basketball game to KingCo League Class 3A Liberty of Renton at the Gator Dome.

Decatur's overall record fell to 1-8 while Liberty improved to 4-7.

"We had some problems working our offense and defense together and got down on ourselves," said Gator head coach Kevin Rawie.

Decatur competed well early. Two free throws from Alexis Cole to start the game gave the Gators their only lead of the game. The Patriots gained a 4-2 advantage that Decatur erased for a 4-4 tie.

From that point, the Gators encountered communication problems with each other, unable to correctly anticipate each others' movements. This led to a plethora of turnovers and defensive breakdowns as Liberty rolled to a 10-4 margin. By the end of the quarter, the Patriots had pushed their margin to 15-7.

Trailing 27-13 at halftime, Decatur tried to energize itself, but the deficit kept growing.

On this night in January, facing a foe that was stronger, quicker and more polished, the Lady Gators simply were unable to find the spark that would lift them up once they were down. Liberty continually whipped crisp side to side passes as well as finding success with inside to outside passes that created freedom for open outside shots or easy inside shots.

Takiya Flowers led Decatur in scoring with nine points.

For Liberty, five-foot, eleven-inch Aspen Winegar (13) and six-foot, one-inch Danni Sjolander (8) controlled the inside.