COEUR d’ALENE — At halftime, Lake City High’s boys basketball coaches looked at the stat sheet and told Kyle Guice, their 6-foot-6 sophomore post who had one rebound at that point, that they needed a few more rebounds out of him in the second half.

Guice listened and came up big after intermission, finishing with 13 rebounds — none bigger than the one he grabbed in the closing seconds on Coeur d’Alene’s final, missed shot that secured Lake City’s 38-36 victory over the second-ranked Vikings in 5A Inland Empire League play Friday night before an estimated 1,500 at Lake City.

“It’s a big win,” said Guice, who also led his team with 10 points. “Definitely rebounding (was key in the fourth quarter), we didn’t let them get second possessions.”

Lake City (9-6, 3-1 5A IEL) bounced back from a 24-point loss at Coeur d’Alene three weeks ago in the Fight for the Fish spirit game. Just as important, Lake City pulled into a tie for first place with the Vikings (11-4, 3-1) with two league games remaining.

“I’ve been harping on them from Day 1 — everybody tells you you’re the new kids on the block, and you’re all young, and you only have two seniors, but it doesn’t mean you can’t win,” Lake City coach Jim Winger said. “We’ve had some great wins, then we’d take a step back. We were scared to take another step; we were timid. And the Fish game, we took a major step back, and then we come back and beat Post Falls and the light kinda went on.”

Coeur d’Alene could have all but wrapped up the No. 1 seed and home-court advantage throughout the 5A Region 1 tournament, but shot just 10 of 40 against Lake City’s zone defense. The Vikings’ top two scorers, Deon Watson and Ty Higbie, combined for just 11 points.

“Teams don’t want us to get out and run, and I don’t blame them,” Coeur d’Alene coach Kent Leiss said. “So we’re going to have to learn to either, A, speed the game up, or we’re going to have to play better at that tempo. ... we just don’t have the scoring that we’ve had in the past, and the guys to get up and run.”

Guice scored on a tip-in early in the third quarter to put Lake City ahead 21-19, then picked up his third foul with 6:23 left in the quarter and sat the rest of the quarter.

He returned to start the fourth, and immediately tied the game at 27 with a short jumper. Riley Moreen’s fast-break dunk with 7 minutes left put the Timberwolves ahead 29-27.

Skip ahead to just over 3 minutes remaining, when Luke Ness sank a 3-pointer to put Lake City ahead 34-32. Jared Moore hit a free throw for Coeur d’Alene, and Guice scored on a spin move to make it 36-33 Lake City with 2:13 left.

Moore hit a free throw and Moreen hit a free throw, and with the clock winding down, Higbie’s 3 from the top of the key banked hard off the glass, and rattled in and out. Guice rebounded and was fouled, and sank one free throw to make it 38-34 with 16.5 seconds left.

Devon Loy’s pullup jumper with 9 seconds left pulled the Vikings within two. Moreen missed the front end of a one-and-one with 7.2 seconds left, giving Coeur d’Alene one last chance.

Watson grabbed the rebound and dribbled the length of the floor. He drove to the basket and, with Guice guarding him tightly, tried a left-handed layup that bounced off the backboard and the rim. Guice snatched the rebound as the buzzer sounded — that is, if anybody heard it over the roar of the crowd.

“I didn’t want to foul him,” Guice said of the final play. “It came up short of the rim, and I went up and got it. It was awesome; I knew it was mine — nobody was going to get it from me.”

“I thought he was outstanding in the second half,” Winger said of Guice. “Something happened, because when he gets mad, he plays big, and he played huge.”

Mitch Bevacqua added nine points, Ness eight and Moreen seven for Lake City, playing for the first time in two weeks because its game at Lewiston last Friday got snowed out.

Moore, a reserve, hit two 3s and scored 10 points to lead Coeur d’Alene, which also beat Lake City by two points at the Coeur d’Alene Inn-vitational over the holidays.

On Tuesday, Lake City travels to Post Falls, and Coeur d’Alene is home against Moscow.

Coeur d’Alene 8 11 8 9 — 36

Lake City 8 11 6 13 — 38

COEUR d’ALENE — Tackett 0, Roletto 3, Chalich 5, Loy 5, Moore 10, Higbie 2, Watson 9, Blakley 2.

LAKE CITY — Traverse 0, Pratt 4, Bevacqua 4, Ness 8, Moreen 7, Guice 10, Winger 0.