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The Dayspring Christian boys' basketball team has been saving its best for last.

The Lions have been playing their best ball of the season during a 14-game win streak the past two months. They'll hope to ride that wave when they begin play today in the National Association of Christian Athletics tournament in Dayton, Tenn.

This will be the sixth trip to the NACA for Dayspring in the past seven years. This season's squad has been as impressive as any during the 10-year history of the school's basketball program. Dayspring recorded school-best runner-up finishes in the tournament in 2001 and 2002, and the Lions placed fifth last season.

This year's team is 28-7 and won all 12 of its Virginia Association of Christian Athletics South Division games. It then won the VACA South postseason tournament.

Last week, Dayspring beat fellow VACA South foe Christian Homeschoolers of Southwest Virginia to claim the overall VACA state tournament title.

"There's two things that are great about this team," Dayspring coach Dug Hampton said. "One is the way they play defense, and the other is just how close they are from the first man to the last man."

Hampton said other Dayspring teams "were much more offensively explosive, but this team has played a much tougher schedule and has held teams to just 42 points a game."

During their win streak, the Lions have gotten balanced play from four starters: juniors Joey Mock (19.9 points a game) and John Thomas (12.5) and sophomores Phil Ribbens (13.5) and Tyler Gall (7.5).

Mock and Thomas have been proven contributors on the team since they were freshmen, but this season, and particularly the second half of it, has represented something of a coming of age for Ribbens and Gall.

Ribbens, a 6-foot-3 forward, was named the VACA state tournament MVP after he poured in 28 points and eight 3-pointers in the finals. He will join the team today after flying in from the funeral of his cousin in Iowa.

Gall, a 6-foot-1 guard, scored a career-high 29 points earlier in the regular season, keying a victory over Christian Heritage.

"When your fourth-leading scorer can put up 29 in a game, that's pretty good," Hampton said.

Hampton said the Lions have set the goal of winning the NACA this season. Monday evening, before the team left for Tennessee, he said he expected Dayspring to be seeded as high as fourth in the 16-team tournament.

A copy of the official NACA draw was unavailable Tuesday.

Since many small state champion Christian schools, and particularly those on the West Coast, turn down NACA bids because of travel expenses or other commitments, the Tennessee tournament can't really be considered a determinant of the nation's absolute best team.

But Dayspring will still be up against a formidable array of competition from states such as Florida, Missouri, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Making the NACA "is the goal we point toward every year," Hampton said. "It's a pretty big deal for us."

Mock, a forward on pace to finish near the top of the school's all-time career scoring mark, said this year's Lions have built a strong chemistry that will help this week as they pursue Dayspring's first NACA title.

"We're all shooting it well and playing well," Mock said. "We've been working hard as a team. We communicate better and trust each other more than we ever have.

"Any one of us can have a big night."

Gall echoed Mock when asked about the balance of the team.

"Everyone has stepped it up, not just John and Joey," he said. "Even the guys who don't start have been playing really well. Everyone has been playing harder than normal."

Gall said the Lions are excited to return to the NACA but that they won't allow themselves to feel too much pressure this week.

"We're proud of it, but it's nothing too incredible," he said. "We're just treating it like regular season games and going to have fun."