Unforced errors in the opening half put the Valley Christian Academy boys basketball team in a situation it could not escape.

The Lions lost their opening game in the CIF State Championship tournament 88-67, but the contest was much closer than that. Playing on the road at City College of San Francisco against University High, the No. 11 seeded Lions turned it over 20 times before intermission and essentially sealed their fate.

"I think the setting and magnitude of the game had a lot to do with our play," said Valley Christian coach Brad Gunter. "This was the first time any of my players had been in this big of a game and we did not show up the way we would of liked. They could not stop us when we attacked, but our hesitation in the first half killed us."

After leading by a single point after one period, VCA yielded 28 in the second stanza and trailed by 10 at the break.

"I know that we had chances the entire second half to get back in the game and win, but what should have easily been a 20-point advantage in the first half was turned into a 10-point deficit instead," Gunter said. "I think we ended the game with 30 turnovers total."

University should have been playing into VCA's hands as they worked to push up the speed of the game, something the Lions usually prefer.

"University pressed the entire game, but the press was not a turnover in your face style, but rather a soft press to get the opponent in an up tempo game," Gunter said. "That is what we want and when we attacked it properly we scored at will. We had so many unforced turnovers."

Where University did gain a huge advantage was from long range. The Red Devils buried 14 three-pointers in the contest, while VCA hit nine. The three-ball was a key in the third quarter, when the Lions cut the margin briefly to two before University went downtown and pushed it back out to a double-digit advantage.

"We opened up the third period and within a minute we had cut the lead to two points and rather easily, and then we fell back on our heels and once again stopped attacking," Gunter said. "A few quick turnovers and two straight threes and they were right back to a 10-point lead. That was the story of the second half. We would cut it to two or three points and then another thre would put them back up."

Valley Christian was solid defensively on the Red Devil's leading scorer, Noah Springwater, holding him to just eight points, but the other members of the University backcourt killed VCA as they combined for 53 points.

"If we could have played attack style ball from the start I feel that we would have fared much better," Gunter said. "In the second half they had a comfort level that was not justified and made their guards a little more confident from the outside. In the first half we saw a panic and a size domination that could match them and actually control things in the running game, but the turnovers killed us."

The final margin of victory was reflective of the Lions' approach late in the game. Trailing by eight with just two minutes to play, VCA went to a gambling approach as they tried desperately to make a final run. Instead, that left it vulnerable to having the margin widened considerably.

Seniors Ryan Cordell and Rob Frank shared team-high scoring honors with 17 points each, while sophomore Jason Gish scored 14.

The loss ends the Valley Christian season at 25-6 overall.

"There are no regrets because this was a huge stepping stone for our program and we now have it in our sights to return," Gunter said. "We won trophies in every preseason tourney, made it to the (section) final four, shared a league title, were ranked top 10 in the NorCal Div. V rankings, and have a lot of fire power returning next year."