The Todd Beamer Titans came into Tuesday night’s pivotal matchup with cross-town rival Decatur without a signature win this season.

After entering the year as the third-ranked team in the state, the Titans started the 2009-10 season with a pedestrian 3-3 record, while suffering double-digit losses to Jefferson, Curtis, Bellevue and Puyallup.

But Beamer and its 6-foot-8 forward Kevin Davis finally seemed to put it together Tuesday and finally got one of those “signature wins” on their home court.

The ultra-talented Titans (8-4 overall, 6-2 in league) knocked off ninth-ranked Decatur, 70-63, in a key SPSL South battle. The win moves the Titans into a second-place tie with the Gators. Unbeaten and second-ranked Curtis (12-0) sits atop the South.

“We are just playing better now,” junior guard Napa Mefi said. “We came into the season big-headed. We thought that they would just roll the ball out and we would win the game. We have just started working hard and practicing better. Now we know that we can beat the top teams.”

Davis was a monster against Decatur (8-3, 6-2). The senior dominated the second half of the game and finished with 30 points and 17 rebounds for the Titans. Davis keyed Beamer’s second-half comeback with 21 points in the third and fourth quarters, including four highlight-reel, crowd-pleasing dunks that seemed to propel the Titans to the win.

“(The dunks) kind of set the tone for the whole team,” Davis said.

“He plays above the rim and we don’t have a lot of guys that play that high above the rim,” Decatur head coach Kevin Olson said. “We didn’t find him. If they can get in the lane, it’s going to be tough for us to keep the ball away from him.”

The Gators, led by junior guard Jerron Smith, controlled the the entire first half. Decatur built up a nine-point lead for most of the second quarter, before Mefi hit a long 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer to cut the Gator advantage to 35-29.

Smith finished the first half with 11 points, including seven in the first two minutes of the game. But Decatur’s leading scorer was not really a factor during Beamer’s second-half run, finishing with 18 points.

The third quarter was back and forth for the first four minutes before the Titans exploded on a 13-0 run to take an 11-point lead into the fourth quarter. Beamer’s run was keyed by a full-court press that forced five Gator turnovers.

“There is no excuse for that,” Olson said. “We should have been able to take care of the basketball. They put a little press on us and for some reason, we acted like we’ve never seen a press before. We were not ready to play in the third quarter.”

Decatur climbed back to within three, 66-63, with just 23 seconds remaining in the game after Smith converted a pair of free throws. But Mefi hit four clutch free throws in the last 18.7 seconds to close out the Beamer victory. Mefi finished with 21 points and four assists.

“The second half is our half,” Davis said. “We were just running and gunning.”

The Titans have another huge game Tuesday when the unbeaten Curtis Vikings come to Federal Way. Curtis pounced Beamer, 80-60, in their first meeting of the year in University Place on Dec. 10. A win Tuesday would cut the Vikings’ lead in the SPSL South to just one game.

“We are not in the top 10 and we want to be there again,” he said. “We want to show everybody we deserve to be there.”

In other boys basketball action:

• The top-ranked Federal Way Eagles moved to 11-0 overall and 8-0 in the SPSL North with a workmanlike 77-66 win over the Kent-Meridian Royals Tuesday.

The Eagles outscored Kent-Meridian 40-25 during the first half. Federal Way was led by the 23 points of Cole Dickerson and 16 from Isiah Umipig. The Royals (3-9, 1-7) actually outscored the defending state champs 41-37 during the second half.

The Eagles host Auburn Riverside Thursday (Jan. 14) and take on the Jefferson Democrats at 6 p.m. at Hec Edmondson Pavilion on the University of Washington campus Monday at the King Holiday Hoopfest. Jefferson, of Portland, is the two-time defending Oregon state champions and are led by All-American forward Terrence Jones.

• The Kentridge Chargers (9-3, 6-2) proved too much for Jefferson Tuesday night in an SPSL North battle. The Chargers downed the Raiders, 70-56, in Kent.

Kentridge got 38 points from junior guard Gary Bell, who is averaging 25.9 points a game. The Raiders (5-6, 2-5) were led by 16 points from senior Jeff Brigham, 15 from Eric Radford and 13 from Justin Lanier.