A tight contest that pushed his team to its limit to earn a victory was a surprisingly good sight for Valley Christian Academy boys basketball coach Brad Gunter Saturday night.

“This was the game that we needed,” Gunter said. “It was a dogfight after the first couple of minutes. We jumped out to a quick 11-2 lead and then the basket seemed to shrink. On the road I understand, but we were at home. We just could not make shots tonight.”

The Lions came from behind by outscoring visiting Monte Vista Christian 14-5 in the final stanza to take a 58-54 win in a non-league game. The visitors from the Monterey area had controlled the pace of scoring, particularly in the second period and took a five-point advantage into the final eight minutes.

The five-point lead was still intact with less than a minute to go, but Valley Christian took care of business with their pressure defense and at the free throw line to complete their comeback and claim victory.

Jesse Peters knocked down two free throws with a little over 30 seconds left in the game that finally gave the Lions the lead as they put VCA up by one point. After a Jason Gish steal and a defensive stop, Gish hit 3-of-4 charity tosses down the stretch to put the game in the win column for the Lions.

Ryan Cordell was the only Valley Christian scorer in double figures, but he had to battle for every one of his 25 points.

“They did a great job on Cordell all night, but he still got 25 points,” Gunter said. “The problem was, we could not hit from anywhere. Outside of Cordell, we had players with open looks all night long and could not hit the shot. We won ugly tonight, but it might be the exact thing we needed for the future.”

The Lions took a ton of shots, but were off the mark most of the night, connecting on just 3-of-32 from beyond the three-point line. The squad needed 84 total shots to get to 58 points. Stanley Winters and Peters each scored eight points for VCA.

The Lions host Buckingham Charter in a Sacramento Metro Athletic League game at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday night.