Michael Florek for AnnArbor.com

The Skyline High School boys basketball team, for the first time in its short history, finally has the benefit of seniors.

Thursday night, Skyline's two senior starters came through. One, by filling up the stat sheet, the other by keeping the other teams relatively clean

More coverage: Boxscore at MLive.com | Basketball roundup

Theron Wilson provided the offense and Jordan Woods the defense, leading the Eagles to a 64-51 victory over cross-town rival Pioneer on Thursday. The loss knocks Pioneer out of first place in the Southeastern Conference Red division.

It was Skyline's only win of the season in four attempts after losing at the buzzer the last tie out against Pioneer and being swept by Huron on the year. “We were 0-3 in our rivalry games so we had to step it up,” Wilson said.

Wilson did so with a game- and season-high 22 points while adding nine rebounds, five assists and two blocks.

The scoring came at a steady pace. He had 10 points in the first half, 12 in the second.

When the Eagles (10-8, 5-6) fell behind midway through the second quarter, Wilson hit a 3-pointer to retake the lead. When the Pioneers took the lead back near the half, Wilson converted on a 3-point play to send the Eagles into the locker room trailing by just one at 27-26.

With Pioneer (12-6, 8-3) in danger of falling too far behind with not enough time in the fourth, Wilson beat a defender on stop-and-go move under the basket for an easy layup to extend Skyline’s lead to 10 with five minutes remaining.

He scored the game’s first basket just 27 seconds in and the game’s last basket with an emphatic dunk with just one second on the clock.

“He just sort of dominated the whole course of action,” Pioneer coach Rex Stanczak said. “It’s frustrating. It really is. We tried a lot of different things. We went under ball screens, we went over ball screens, we trapped him, we played a little bit of zone when the game wasn’t out of hand. He just had one of those nights.”

Wilson’s senior counterpart, Woods, added 11 points. But his main job was stopping Pioneer senior point guard Jimmy Holman.

Holman showed why he was so dangerous, particularly late in the game, scoring five consecutive points in 20 seconds to cut Skyline’s lead to seven with 1:30 to play. But Woods held him to just eight points.

The Eagles’ followed Woods’ lead, ratcheting up the defense when it mattered. Just one Pioneer, Aedan York, got into double digits with 11 points.

Skyline trailed for most of the second quarter and the beginning of the third. It took the lead and pulled away with a 12-2 run to end the third that put them up 43-36. Skyline coach Mike Lovelace credited his defense for the shift in momentum.

“Woods leads that,” Lovelace said. “He embraces that role of trying to take out the other team’s best player.”