Decatur battled back in a big way to beat South Puget Sound League South Division and crosstown rival Todd Beamer by a 43-31 score Tuesday, Jan. 12.

The Titans had taken as much as a 10-2 lead in the first quarter and led, 10-3, at the end of the quarter, but Decatur was far from done.

Winning was a relief to Gators head coach Kevin Rawie, whose team improved to 2-9 overall.

"We were the comeback kids," said Rawie of the win over the Titans. "We just cut down on turnovers and started looking for each other. We played as a team and we ran when we had the chance to run and ran the offense."

Shyla Akins of Todd Beamer started off the scoring only 53 seconds into the game with a three-point basket. The Titans then gradually built up the early lead to 10-2 by the time only 2:58 remained in the first quarter.

Decatur got the last word in with 38.6 left in the first quarter, when Kayla Lipston swished in one of two free throws to make it 10-3.

But the Gators came out tough in he second quarter, scoring six of the first seven points. Abby McFaul capped the rally off by icing a three-point play to make it 11-8 at the 4:30 mark.

The game then settled into a back-and-forth mode after that, before Decatur broke open a 27-26 lead in the third quarter with the help of four points by Charsity Smith in a 5-0 rally.

Mik'kell Frier struck for a right-side outside basket with 36 seconds to go for a 27-26 advantage going into fourth quarter.

McFaul stunned the Titans on the opening shot of the fourth quarter by making a three pointer at the 7:27 mark. Frier widened the Gators' lead to 32-26 with 6:36 left.

Decatur gradually built its winning margin of 43-31 from there.

Smith led the Gators to victory with 10 points, and Shyla Akins topped the Todd Beamer scorers with 10.

Frier contributed nine points to the Decatur cause as McFaul finished with eight. Lipston scored six more for the Gators, with Ayesia Rogers hitting five, Alexis Cole threee and Takiya Flowers two.

Sherie Greene backed up Akins with eight points for Todd Beamer. Meghan Graf scored seven and Kim Williams hit six.

Now, as for the rest of the season, Rawie will have the Gators working against making the turnover that have plagued them so far.
Decatur hosts Puyallup for a 7 p.m. game Friday, Jan. 22.

"It's just one game at a time trying to take care of the ball," said Rawie.

Beamer visits Curtis Wednesday, Jan. 20 and gets a visit from Spanaway Lake at 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 22.