ARCADIA — The Maranatha boys basketball team had arguably its best defensive game of the season in a 53-29 win over Shadow Hills on Saturday afternoon in the MLK Showcase game at Arcadia.

Maranatha, which held the Knights to nine points in the first half, jumped out to a 19-point lead in the first quarter and didn’t look back.

It’s a promising win for a young Maranatha squad that took its lumps throughout the preseason, but has now won three of its last five games as it heads into a crucial stretch in the Olympic League.

Maranatha head coach Tim Tucker said the program has been battling injuries throughout the season, but added the team’s injury luck has turned a corner.

“It’s a sprint, not a marathon,” Tucker said. “So we’re hoping that we’re getting healthy and we’re getting some continuity at the end and try to make a big run to get into the playoffs.”

The Minutemen (8-14) got a big game from Harrison Harper. The junior forward scored a team-high 11 points on 4-of-11 shooting from the field. Harper tacked on seven rebounds and two blocks.

“It was a really good turnaround from last night’s game (a 57-33 loss to Heritage Christian on Friday). Coming off that, we really needed a win to bring our team camaraderie together and bring our energy up, so it was a good win,” Harper said.

Maranatha 6-foot-6 sophomore Isaiah Lemongo finished with 10 points and five rebounds.

The Minutemen came away with 14 steals and four blocks.

“Defense leads to offense,” Harper said. “When our team really locks down on defense, we take the game and go from there.”

Maranatha’s Miles O’Malley grinded out seven points and had a game-high three steals.

“Our defense has been playing the way they need to, we just got to get our offense going, it’s been kind of sluggish,” Tucker said.

It was a slow start to the game as the two teams combined for five points in the first three minutes of the game. However, Maranatha exploded for a 18-0 run to cap off the first quarter.

The Minutemen’s lead ballooned to 30-5 12 minutes into the game as the Knights had no answer for what Maranatha was doing offensively and defensively.

Shadow Hills scored seven points in the second quarter, but trailed 34-9 heading into the half.

Harper took over offensively in the third quarter, scoring six of his 11 points. He single-handedly out scored the Knights, who mustered up five points in the quarter.

Leading by 31 points going into the fourth quarter, Tucker unloaded his bench to give valuable in-game experience to his players who normally don’t get minutes.

“You need your bench. Those are guys who are going to be playing in the future,” Tucker said.