The King’s Fork girls’ basketball team visited Nansemond River on Tuesday and came away with a 67-35 win after a particularly strong showing in the second half.

“We played much better defense,” Lady Bulldogs coach Maurice Fofana said. “We got out and ran. That’s what we wanted to do — get out and run, get out in transition. We did a much better job tonight of doing that than we had done in the past couple games.”

Junior power forward/center Khadedra Croker had 22 points, 14 rebounds and six blocked shots for King’s Fork.

Lady Warriors coach Calvin Mason knew what the missing element was for his team.

“Overall, I was satisfied with our effort,” he said. “Our execution was just lacking.”

Despite his overall positive impression of the game, Fofana was not ready to declare that his team was back to the level of play it inhabited before Christmas break.

“I won’t say that we’re all the way back, because our first half was kind of a little sluggish,” he said. “(We) didn’t switch well on defense, but after we made the adjustments after the half, we did play much better.”

King’s Fork senior wing Adrieanna McCrary scored 12 points, and senior shooting guard Shaikeyla Jordan also got in double figures with 11. Senior wing Chantel Roberts only had four points, but contributed 15 rebounds and seven assists.

Mason tried to motivate his team entering the second half.

“At halftime, I told my team, I said, ‘The first three minutes of the third quarter are going to determine the game,’” he said.

King’s Fork came out strong in the second half and brought into focus what Fofana hopes his team will carry into the back half of the season.

“We actually talked about it after the game,” he said. “The second-half play is the kind of basketball that we want to play. And that’s the kind of basketball we’re going to play. We’re going to get out and run, we’re going to put points up, we’re going to take shots. I’m a coach where I don’t care about how many missed shots we take, but we must play defense.”

Nansemond River (3-11, 2-9) heads to Lakeland this evening and then Deep Creek on Friday.

The Lady Bulldogs (13-2, 10-1) will play at home tonight against Great Bridge and close out the week on Friday at Western Branch, which is tied with KF and Grassfield for first place in the district.