Tusculum opened its season with a strong 88-65 win at home Monday night over King, but the Lady Pioneers had to work for it.

King started with an 11-0 run and had Tusculum on its heels the first four minutes of the game.

Once the Lady Pioneers got started, they rode a solid defense and some big transition baskets to a memorable victory for Adell Harris in her head coaching debut.

"It's special to win any game, but I thought I was being punked ... an 11-0 run to start this thing, you've got to be kidding me," said a happy Harris. "King College showed up today and wanted to beat us. They played hard, at times harder than us. They should walk out of here with their heads held up. I thought they were the better team in spurts today."

The Lady Tornado opened up with a big spurt. King jumped out to an 11-0 lead before Tusculum got out of the gate. Jasmine Gunn took over for the Lady Pioneers with a personal 8-0 run to pull Tusculum right back into it.

King responded with another surge that had the visitors up 20-10, and again Tusculum had to play catch up. But when Shasidy Ludgood hit a 3-pointer from the left wing for Tusculum to tie the game at 20, the threat was over.

Tusculum led 40-30 at halftime, and the Lady Pioneers stretched their advantage to as many as 30 late in the second half.

The big key was Tusculum's defense and how the Lady Pioneers took advantage when they got the ball, said King coach Michele Williams.

"We had 24 turnovers, and with a team like this that is so athletic, you are not going to win too many games like that," she said. "They scored 41 points off our turnovers. That's something we definitely have to work on. I feel like in the second half we did a better job on that, but then they killed us on transition. They are a good team, but I feel like we didn't help ourselves at all the way we played."

Freshman Kendal Baxter played well in her college debut, hitting five 3-pointers and scoring 19 in her first game for Tusculum.

"My older teammates seem to trust me with the ball, and they encourage me to shoot," she said.

Tusculum didn't just shoot the ball well from the perimeter. The Lady Pioneers got the ball inside, scoring 54 points in the paint.

Gunn led all scorers with 20 and had seven assists. Kat Spears had a double-double for Tusculum with 10 points and a game-best 14 rebounds.

Although Harris was happy to get the W, she sees room for improvement.

"I need to watch the tape, need to study the stat sheet a little more," she said. "I don't like the fact we got out rebounded by four. Our defense wasn't bad. I would like to have held them to 60 points. We forced 24 turnovers. We scored off them. That's always a plus. We still have a long way to go."

For King (0-1), Monday night's contest gives the Lady Tornado a glimpse of where they want their program to be. King College is making the move from NAIA to NCAA Division II.

Williams said playing teams like Tusculum, who has made the NCAA Tournament each of the last two years, is a gauge for the team.

"We played a lot of these schools last year," Williams said. "It's my job recruiting wise to go out and get better kids. We play three (South Atlantic Conference) schools the rest of this week. Hopefully this will kind of wake us up and show us we have to play for 40 minutes. They can't play for four and think that's it."

Williams, herself a former local player at North Greene, has done a good job of recruiting in Northeast Tennessee with players from Greeneville, South Greene, Cloudland, Elizabethton, Hampton, Tennessee High, Sullivan Central and Morristown West.

Former Greeneville Lady Devil Ashley Deans, who led King in scoring last season, scored 11 and had seven rebounds. Brittany Kinser, from South Greene, came off the bench and hit a 3-pointer.

Freshman Brooke Johnson, from Cloudland, led King in scoring and rebounding with 13 and 8 off the bench.

Monday night's game was the only home game before Christmas for the Lady Pioneers (1-0). Tusculum begins a stretch of eight straight on the road on Nov. 27 at Columbus State.