The Federal Way Eagles girls basketball team overcame a sluggish 22-20 start to beat host Auburn, 54-51, in a nonleague contest Wednesday.

The Eagles are 1-2 in the South Puget Sound League North and 3-2 overall.

First-year head coach Danny Graham, who also coaches the baseball team, said it all about what his girls need to do better.

But he also gave his girls some slack on the start that had them down by so much early that it looked hopeless for a comeback victory.

"We have not played in two and a half weeks," he said. "Rainouts, oops, that's baseball, well, power outages and snow."

It was a good game for the Eagles and exciting for the few fans that braved the freezing temperatures to go to the city school in the Auburn valley.

The Eagles led, 2-0, on their captain, Rita Helmbrecht, knocking down a jumper. But that was it for leading for the Eagles for sometime after that as the Trojans went on an 11-4 run to end the first quarter ahead, 13-6.

Unfortunately, the slow start got slower. The Eagles trailed midway through the second quarter, 20-8, before coming back with back-to-back baskets from 5-9 sophomore guard Jacqie Evenson.

So, still down by a ton, the Eagles continued to apply pressure defensively, full-court in most cases, and that led to seven Trojan turnovers and a 26-23 deficit after the second quarter.

The Eagles really came out on fire to start the third quarter, scoring an immediate basket with their first possession. Senior Cayla Dixon, a 5-4 senior guard, rattled the net. After the Trojans made 1-for-2 from the free throw line, it was Dixon scoring again, using her speed to dribble the ball inside the key and lay it up. Dixon's scores made it 27-27 with six minutes to go in the third.

Applying the pressure, the Eagles forced their third turnover of the third quarter and Helmbrecht hit a jumper to give the Eagles their first lead of the game since the opening minute of play.

So ahead now, 29-27, the Eagles were well on their way to getting a pretty good grip on this game through three as Evenson staked them to a 37-30 lead with three minutes left in the quarter. But the Trojans came back and scored enough points in the final three minutes of the third to trail only 37-36.

In the fourth quarter, the Trojans were worthy comeback players themselves as they took a 39-37 lead with six minutes left in the game. But the Eagles, led by Helmbrecht making a bucket inside to tie things up, 39-39, came back for a 7-0 run to lead 44-39 with five minutes left. The Eagles would soon jump to a 48-41 lead with Helmbrecht's shot that matched the biggest lead of the night.

She stole the ball from the Trojans the next time down the floor. When another girl made a loopy, undesirable circus shot under the hoop that had no chance of going in, and Graham said 'set up, set up.' That girl, too, ended up being on the winning end of a fastbreak bucket of the Eagles following a steal from their frenetic full-court defense.

By the end of the game, Auburn had committed 28 turnovers while the Eagles, who had nine in the first two quarters, committed four in the final two quarters.