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With almost all of its hard-earned 13-point advantage erased, Utah Valley refused to give up the lead.

The Wolverines are stubborn that way.

UVU survived Grand Canyon’s furious comeback and eventually put the game away at the line, finishing off a 72-64 victory on Thursday at the UCCU Center.

I ain’t gonna lie, I’ve been circling this game for a long time,” UVU’s Tanner Toolson said. “But at the same time, it’s just another conference win. We’ve got to move on. We stayed aggressive. They’re a really good second half team and they’ve got a lot of good individual one-on-one players, so to be able to play team defense against them and punching back, I think we did that really well tonight.”

Twice the ‘Lopes cut the deficit to one point, the last time at 51-50 with 9:19 to play. Former Timpanogos standout Jackson Holcombe, a sophomore, came off the bench to play some huge second-half minutes and scored on a post-up to push the Wolverines lead to 53-50.

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The home team handled its business from there in taking down the preseason Western Athletic Conference favorites from Phoenix.

Dominick Nelson led Utah Valley with 21 points and eight rebounds, with Toolson adding 17 points and seven boards. Grand Canyon held UVU leading scorer Carter Welling to 2 of 10 from the field and nine points but point guard Trevan Leonhardt contributed eight rebounds and eight assists along with six points. Holcombe ended up with four points, three rebounds, two blocks and two steals in 15 minutes.

It wasn’t the most minutes Holcombe has played this season, could have been the most meaningful.

“Jackson works his tail off,” Toolson said. “We love Jackson. I think his block was even bigger. It was huge. I’m super proud of him for keeping his head up. He’s had a little bit of up and down season with not knowing about minutes or playing or playing well or whatever, and he just keeps coming back every single day. And he had a big game tonight.”

Utah Valley finished with a 45-37 advantage in rebounding and added 10 blocks against a Grand Canyon team that challenges defenses with its athletic ability.

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“I was really proud of our defense tonight,” Wolverines coach Todd Phillips said. “I thought we sat down and guarded. This is one of the best offensive teams in the league to sit down and guard and then to rebound. Winning the rebounding battle was huge for us. We’ve been hitting our guys hard on that. I chewed out our guards a week ago about rebounding and they got eight, seven and eight.”

NBA prospect Tyon Grant-Foster scored 18 of his team-leading 22 points in the second half for Grand Canyon (11-5, 1-1 WAC).

The lead changed hands six times in the first half before Utah Valley took control at the 14-minute mark, erupting on a 12-0 run fueled by strong defense and transition attacks. After Kylin Green sped in for a layup, Toolson drilled a 3-pointer and then fed Carter Welling on a soaring alley-oop dunk. Nelson scored five straight points, including a 3-pointer, to finish the run and turned a 12-11 deficit into a into a 23-12 lead with 8:28 remaining.

The Wolverines led by 12, 28-16, on another Toolson triple with 6:54 left. Grand Canyon trimmed the deficit to six, 31-26, when Lok Wur dropped in a long-distance bomb at the 2:55 mark, but baskets from Toolson and Green pushed the UVU advantage to 10, 35-25, at the break.

Osiris Grady nailed a 3-pointer to open the second half and the Wolverines had their largest lead, 13 points, at 38-25. But Grand Canyon heated up and started to find a good rhythm on offense behind Grant-Foster. The Lopes cut the UCU lead to just two, 49-47, on a steal and conversion from Grant-Foster and he hit one of two from the line the next trip down the floor to make it 49-48, with 9:48 to play.

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It was 51-50 when Holcombe made his big basket, which started a 7-0 run that included a connection from Leonhardt to Ethan Potter for a dunk and a 58-50 advantage with 5:25 to play. UVU made 8 of 10 from the line in the final 1:30 to hold on for the win.

“We’ve continued growing and I think I saw some good things during our preseason, we were just on the road,” Phillips said. “Winning at home is huge for us. We’ve been really good at home in the past. You lose those games and you’re going to be behind the eight ball going on the road. So this was a huge one tonight.”

Utah Valley (10-6, 2-0 WAC) remains at home on Saturday and will host Cal Baptist in the UCCU Center at 2 p.m. MT. The Lancers (8-7, 1-0) won their league opener on Saturday, edging out Seattle U 61-59.