Decatur girls soccer finishes regular season with a bang

The Decatur girls soccer team put the finishing touches on a historic season with a 3-0 win over White River on Oct. 29.

For the first time since 2003, the girls soccer team are league champions. The league’s fate was decided in the Gators’ win over Todd Beamer on Oct. 26.

The Gators finished with 45 points this season, a 30-point increase from last season. “It look a lot of hard work to get here,” sophomore Kaihea Tuifua said after the win.

Decatur’s 2024 season has just one blemish on the season, a 2-0 loss to Enumclaw on Oct. 12. But that loss hasn’t been on the mind of the Gators so far this season — in the final five games of the season following the loss, Decatur has scored 33 goals.

“This team has been good from the back to the front all year. Our top four up front with Kaihea, Alexa, Amani and Julie all work well together. They are a strong core and I emphasize to use each and every one of them and it showed this season,” Manager Sean Davis said.

The Gators didn’t wait long to score and really took off from there. In the third minute, Tuifua drew a penalty from about 25-yards out. Vanessa Garcia took the free kick and hit a perfect shot into the bottom right corner of the net.

On her senior night, Garcia put the Gators in the drivers seat and encapsulates the Gators 2024 season. “They are great role models and great players. We will miss them next year,” Tuifua said.

Just 17 minutes later, Tuifua made her impact felt again. Her innate ability to out-hustle and outwork her opponents for the Gators second goal. A ball got sent in the air over the backline of White River, the Hornets expected the goalie to be aggressive and make a play. But Tuifua got there first and flicked a shot past her for the 2-0 lead.

It was Tuifua’s 30th goal this season, in the win over Todd Beamer she scored her 29th, which beat Davis’s own personal record of 28 back in his high school season. Her 30 goals is more than Decatur scored all of last season.

“I always knew I was going to break his record,” Tuifua said.

“Last year I wanted to know how much he scored and break his record this year.”

Before 2023, the last time Decatur as a team scored more than 20 goals in a season was 2017 (25). Hannah Shires was the leading goal scorer that year with 10.

Overall Decatur has scored 89 goals this season, adding up all goals scored from 2023 to 2017 the number is 97.

The final goal of the Gators regular season came out of the ninth minute after halftime. A free kick taken by Tuifua bounced off the post, but Juliana Delucio was in the perfect position and just guided the ball across the line.

It was Decatur’s ninth clean sheet. White River has averaged 3.5 goals a game this season and had been shutout just twice all season. “They met White River’s physicality…Ava, Sam Lavinia and Maya have been outstanding with that all season, the shutouts have shown that,” Davis said.

Decatur is seeded second in the district tournament and is in a winner-to-state game against Bellarmine on Nov. 2. The Gators haven’t made the state tournament since 2011.

“This is a great opportunity for us,” Tuifua said.

Decatur will be challenged this postseason, but with the talent up top, quality in between the posts and togetherness of the defense, Decatur is looking to make a run.

“It’s been a while for this program getting there. It is going to be something different for these seniors who have been here for four years. We are going to take it one game at a time,” Davis said.