Gasp!

Decatur actually carried a 10-0 lead into the locker room at halftime, going against the severely good, always talented, traditional power Puyallup Vikings.But the Gators could not hold onto the football in the second half, and the lead was not held either losing, 21-10, in a South Puget Sound League clash at Federal Way Stadium Friday.

“We let up,” said Cam Schilling, who had a good sequence of passes a couple times in this game, including engineering a touchdown drive and field goal in the second quarter -- the Gators’ only time of scoring in this game.

“We had our foot on their throat, and we let up,” said Schilling.

Gators’ head coach Leon Hatch was talking the same way.

“We let’er get away,” said Hatch, after the game, nodding his head side to side, talking. “We got to just learn how to seal it.”

The Gators’ defense led by 6-2, 250 senior Tevyn Tillman, and 6-6, 250 Keith Arns and 6-3, 220 Ani Nga, shut down the Puyallup running in the first half, around 50 yards total in a dozen or so carries of the football. Those three senior leaders were good to Schilling, too, giving Schilling time to throw the football in the pocket or doing a good job holding blocks for running backs like 5-9, 185 Jordan Flowers.

But having that 10-0 lead that came with a Nick Belcourt field goal at the 7:00 mark of the second quarter and then multiplied off a Schilling 10-yard quarterback keeper -- setting up 5-8, 180 junior Clark Colvin’s 6-yard scamper seemed to almost make these Gators look like they thought they were lucky they had gotten the lead in the first place.

Either way, the Gators had a handful of false start penalties in the third and fourth quarter after it was the Vikings in the first half being called offsides by the referees.

“They have a good coach,” said Hatch. “He made some good adjustments (at halftime).”

Schilling saw it a different way than his coach, or, at least, chose words to show that it was the Gators’ confidence level more than anything else costing them this one.

“We were feeling sorry for ourselves,” said Schilling of what happened to the Gators’ lead. “We haven’t been here before (in a lead against a powerhouse like Puyallup) and we acted like we had not been here before.”

Schilling, a senior, was not excluding himself from the mistakes, either, which started early in the first quarter on the Gators’ opening drive. The Vikings scored with three minutes on the clock in the third quarter, on a screen pass going for 41 yards that made it 10-7.

Then, after a nice runback on the kickoff return from 5-10, 155 senior Paris Jackson of 40 yards, the Gators not only squandered that effort but squelched it with a Schilling interception three plays into that drive. That was made into a 35-yard return to the 13-yard line and three plays later the Vikings ran it in for a 14-10 lead.

The Gators could do no right after that, going for no gains on a couple running plays on their next sequence and then a dropped pass.

Still, with 2:54 showing on the Del Taco scoreboard clock in the fourth quarter, Puyallup with the football on third down and 8, and eloquent, motivational Federal Way booth announcer Justin Rice exclaiming: “Gator fans, this is your time.”

The Gators had a chance to stop the Vikings on downs and get the football back with about 2:45 to play in the fourth quarter. And they would have got the football back around midfield but, unfortunately, the worst thing that could happen did happen. The Vikings’ runner on that 3 and 8 broke free for a 20-yard gain on the next play for a first down. The clock kept running, too, as did the Puyallup runner, getting in to score with 20 seconds left in the game.

At the beginning of the season Schilling and Flowers, captains on the Gators, said that this season they would surprise some teams. Well, count longtime high school successful coach Tom Ingles of Puyallup on that list now.

“Decatur has some talented big kids,” said Ingles, who coached Kentwood to numerous high state finishes in 14 years there, including two state Kingbowl championships before now coaching the Viks the last five seasons. “Coach Hatch is doing a good job. I think our kids (Puyallup) were surprised by how well they (Decatur) played. I don’t want to play them at the end of the season, I don’t think.”

If the Gators make a run of things, after this tough 0-2 start, they would get a chance, perhaps, to see Puyallup again in the playoffs.

So Hatch has a good confirmation there from a coach that’s been around the block a few times. This was just a game where Schilling’s second half interceptions and a couple fumbles to boot were key problems that gave the Vikings just enough momentum to come away with a win. That says something there, to be in a close game against the Vikings, a team that is good enough that they were picked the week before to play at Qwest Field in a showcase event of top football talent. The Vikings beat Bellarmine Prep, another football powerhouse, from the Narrows league.

“We are going to get better,” said Hatch after the game, his son, Jalen, under his arm and his three-year old twins, Makai and Kiana, carried each in an arm. Hatch’s other son, Isaiah, was not there by daddy but he is the ball boy for the Gators.

Just takes time it seems to be what Hatch was all saying.

“We had a few plays that cost us,” said Hatch. “And when you are playing a tight one like that, turnovers will do you in.”

Schilling threw 7-for-15 for 88 yards while Parker Herbert caught three passes for 39 yards and Tyrone Faulkner caught three passes for 49 yards. Flowers ran 16 times for 73 yards and Colvin carried seven times for 39 yards. The Vikings’ main running back, Jorey Johnson, seemed to wear down the Gators’ defensive line with his speed, carrying the ball 14 times for 141 yards with three quarters of those yards in the third and fourth quarters.

The other killer playmaker for the Vikings was Justin Veltung. He did not carry the ball out of the backfield as a running back, but his kickoff and punt returns was downright deadly. He, at least a couple times, ran back kicks for big yardage to get his team in the Gators’ half of the field with one big play.

All in the second half Veltung, a state soccer player too, did his damage. The Viks got 90 yards total passing and 177 running. So thier numbers compared to the Gators’ 88 passing and 162 running were fairly close. The difference was the late special teams return runs by Veltung, Johnson’s 2 second half TD’s for the Viks. And two Schilling interceptions late in the third quarter and then with 5:00 on the clock and the Gators driving to score.

“I made some bad decisions with the ball down the stretch,” said Schilling, a second-year quarterback for the Gators. “My receivers and I were not on the same page.”

So there were some things that hurt, a lot of things, but they seem to be little things that with a little correction can be fixed and this Gators team can still make some noise this season.

Assistant coaches for the Gators are Dion Alexander, Aaron Bourgette, Steve Brown, Josh Croskey, Andre Piper-Jordan and Desmond Vaeao.

All these players had quite a talking-to after this Puyallup game by Hatch and probably his staff. Afterall, they were all together for a solid half hour post-game session in their Federal Way Stadium locker room. It shows that this coach and this staff wants to win and is dedicated to talking to these players about getting down what went wrong and what went right. A lot went right, like Schilling at times, throwing dead-eye shots to receivers Flowers, Colvin or Faulkner and Jackson returning kicks. Or, there were a lot of good things. Even the Gators’ large student body shouting louder than a Puyallup student body in the first half, so loud that it shut the foe up for awhile.

But after halftime, the Vikings’ crowd got back in it as their team got going and seemed to even drown out the Gators’ fans after that. What does one make of all that?

“You just got to keep working,” said Hatch. “We are going to get it.”