The King’s Fork High School girls’ basketball team took on one of the best teams in South Hampton Roads on Tuesday in Lake Taylor High School, but during the course of the game, the host Lady Bulldogs showed why they are the last elite girls’ team in the area still undefeated.

They recovered from a poor first half to hand the Lady Titans a 58-49 conference loss.

“We actually fell behind in the first half, and we came out down 10 points in the second half, but our pressure defense changed the whole complexion of the game,” King’s Fork coach Maurice Fofana said.

Lake Taylor led 14-5 after the first quarter, then 26-16 at the half.

“We missed a lot of shots in the first half,” Fofana said, noting his girls were 9-for-52 from the field, shooting 17.3 percent. Also, “we didn’t play defense well.”

The coach said he told his players at halftime that “I think the key for us is just us being us, us playing us.”

Among other things, Fofana defined “us being us” as good guard play, “but our No. 1 thing is defense.”

The Lady Bulldogs became more like themselves in the second half on Tuesday, outscoring the Lady Titans 24-9 in the third quarter and 18-14 in the fourth.

Junior guard Cydney Nichols led the way for King’s Fork with a game-high 29 points to go with 10 steals, continuing her tremendous play after a game-high 22-point performance in Saturday’s Lady Bulldogs win over visiting Nansemond River High School.

Nichols has been a standout the last couple of years for KF, but she had a somewhat quiet start to the 2015-16 season.

“She has come on strong, but it’s nothing that we didn’t expect,” Fofana said. “We knew from the beginning that she could play. We saw some spurts in her freshman year, but she has stepped up to the challenge.”

Sophomore point guard Camary Harris had 11 points and seven assists, and junior forward Amesha Miller added 14 points and 13 rebounds.

Fofana said Miller is getting a double-double almost every night, even though she is drawing two defenders every night, so his expectations for her now are to have a triple-double, including blocks.

With the win, the Lady Bulldogs improved to 5-0 in Conference 17 while upgrading their overall record for the season to 17-0 — the longest undefeated start the team has had in Fofana’s seven years as its coach.

Rather than the Lady Bulldogs’ success translating into pressure on them, “I think it’s more motivation for the young ladies,” Fofana said, noting they want to stay on top. “We like saying that we’re the only team in the area that has not lost a game.”

King’s Fork faces another one of the top teams in the area on Friday when it visits conference rival Woodrow Wilson High School.