When the Skyline College men’s basketball team was in the midst of a nine-game losing streak, it never wavered in its belief that it would somehow climb from the depths of basketball purgatory and find redemption.

Now we know why.

Playing perhaps their best game of the season, the Trojans defeated Ohlone, the eighth-ranked team in Northern California, 62-55 on Wednesday in a crucial Coast Conference North Division game at the College of San Mateo. After being hit hard by injuries early in the season, Skyline (2-0 Coast North, 9-13) is on the rebound, having won its last two coming off the heels of a six week stretch in which it lost nine in a row.

“It was six weeks of low points,” Skyline coach Justin Piergrossi said. “The hardest part was keeping the team up but pushing them at the same time.”

The Trojans had to push the pace against the Renegades (1-1, 16-8), whose matchup zone has given teams fits over the years. Yet Skyline made just enough plays — despite committing 27 turnovers — and played some solid defense of its own in beating Ohlone.

When a team presses you, you have to make them pay. That’s exactly what the Trojans did, scoring numerous layups and finding success both inside and off the dribble. Skyline played superbly in the first half, forging a 33-24 lead despite 15 turnovers. Jeremy Francis’ 3-pointer gave the Trojans a 23-12 lead with 5:28 left until halftime.

Point guard Marques Benjamin got the Trojans into their offense, and they attacked and made passes to midcourt — the key to breaking Ohlone’s vaunted defense. Skyline built its largest lead, 48-32, midway through the second half, before surviving a late Renegades’ charge. Ohlone got to within 59-55 with 40 seconds remaining on a Jermaine Smith free throw, but that’s as close as they would get. Skyline’s Jabari Davis, last year’s Oakland Athletic League player of the year, made one of the biggest plays of the game by drawing a charge in the lane with 32 seconds to go.

Skyline could’ve won by a more comfortable margin had it not missed 7 of 10 free throws in the last 42 seconds. Davis was active all night, finishing with 12 points and a game-high 11 rebounds, while frontcourt mate Sam Wilhoite had seven points and four blocks. Francis made a number of key shots on his way to a team-high 17 points. Skyline shot a respectable 44.6 percent from the floor (25 of 56), including 12 of 25 in the second half. Piergrossi was proud of his team for the fight they showed.

“They responded,” he said. “There definitely wasn’t a whole lot of coaching tonight and ‘X’ing and ‘O’ing. This was a game where the guys had to make the plays, and they did. This was about basketball players making good decisions, and they were phenomenal at times. I’m really happy in the way they got after it. I don’t know if we could play much better.”

Added Davis: “We knew we’d come back. The key tonight was guys getting in the gaps of the defense and doing what we do best — making plays. It’s definitely a confidence booster. When we were losing, we were down, but we knew eventually we’d pull together. We just had to get healthy and get on the same page.”

Now it’s up to Skyline to show if it can repeat this effort on a consistent basis. If it can, watch out.

“We haven’t proven we can be consistently good this year,” Piergrossi said. “We have to follow this up on Friday (at Foothill). If we can play like we did tonight, we’ll be pretty good.”

Of that, there is little doubt.