King’s Fork High School’s girls’ basketball team issued a correction on Friday night to those who might have thought it was no longer the best team in Conference 17.

The No. 2 Lady Bulldogs defeated No. 1 Woodrow Wilson High School 59-50 in the conference tournament championship game.

“With us not winning the conference (in the regular season), we kind of felt like we gave one away, so we definitely wanted to reconcile that,” King’s Fork coach Maurice Fofana said.

After winning 66-64 on the road in double overtime the first time they played Wilson, the Lady Bulldogs lost to the visiting Lady Presidents 59-51 in their second regular season meeting. This created a three-way tie for first in the conference, forcing a playoff before the tournament to determine who would own the top seed and its automatic regional berth.

Wilson drew the right number to earn a bye in the playoff, so King’s Fork took on and defeated the other team tied for first, Lake Taylor High School, setting up KF’s third meeting of the season with Wilson, which the Lady Presidents won 66-61 in overtime.

But the Lady Bulldogs re-asserted themselves on Friday, beginning to pull away for good with 1:07 remaining in the fourth quarter when junior forward Amesha Miller made a basket inside and drew a foul, hitting the free throw to make it 56-50.

The Lady Presidents had drawn to within 51-50 before Miller scored the next five points, then sophomore point guard Camary Harris added a couple free throws and freshman guard Neecole Brown added one more.

“We came out with a fire because we felt like we owed them something from the two losses, so we felt like we just had to come out and push through it and win the game,” Miller said.

The conference tournament — during which King’s Fork defeated both Lake Taylor and Wilson — had been about turning back the clock for the Lady Bulldogs.

“We needed to get back to where we were when we were 20-0,” Fofana said. “And this is the kind of team that we were when we were undefeated. We played that way — we were gritty, we played hard.”

The coach also noted that “we’re doing something now that most people haven’t seen us do” — play zone defense.

“For girls’ basketball, it’s been a problem for most people because all teams don’t have people that can really shoot from the outside,” he said.

Strong defense helped King’s Fork get the better of Wilson on Friday.

Miller led the Lady Bulldogs with 22 points, 17 rebounds and five blocks, and Harris contributed 21 points, eight assists and four steals.

King’s Fork was playing without star junior guard Cydney Nichols, who injured her ankle in the tournament semifinals on Wednesday.

“We just went out there and played like she was still on the court,” Miller said. “We still did what we had to do. (A)lexi(s Wethington) and Neecole both stepped up for Cydney, they did what they had do. So Cyd’s absence didn’t hurt us, it made us work harder so that we can get to regionals and states so that she can play in those games.”

King’s Fork (23-3) will travel to either Heritage High School or Jamestown High School on Tuesday for the Region 4A East tournament quarterfinals.