WINONA LAKE — Lakeland Christian Academy’s girls basketball team got off to a fast start in Tuesday’s game with visiting Churubusco — literally.

The Cougars used full court defensive pressure to run out to an 18-8 start and never trailed once en route to a 47-34 victory over the Eagles.

“We just want to start with intensity. I want my girls to start fired up, ready to go and getting that heart out on the court,” explained LCA head coach Allie Kauffman. “Defense is the way that we fuel our offense. If we get going, get a few steals, we get the momentum. That’s definitely our goal each time we start the game — just to come out with the most intensity at the start.”

Four first-quarter Busco turnovers helped cue the Cougars’ fast start.

The game was tied at 4-all at the 4:16 mark of the first quarter, and the visitors were still within one at 9-8 with 1:41 remaining in the opening stanza. But LCA (2-0) closed out the frame 6-0, and Tori Calizo’s old-fashioned three-point play off a fast break assist by Anna Reimink put the hosts up by double figures at 18-8 at the 5:54 stop of the second. The Cougars pushed that advantage out to as many as 14 points before Molly Geiger’s buzzer-beating, pull-up 3 from the wing brought the Eagles (0-3) back to within 26-15 at the half.

Busco’s Makenzi Tonkel knocked down another wing triple early in the third to bring the Eagles back within a single-digit deficit briefly, but LCA began building to leads as large as 18 points on the way to a 2-0 start to the season. The Cougars got caught up in Busco’s frenzied pace as the Eagles rallied late, and seven fourth-quarter turnovers by the hosts made the final margin closer than it really was. Fortunately for LCA, the cushion it had built over the first three and a half frames was more than enough to hold off the visitors.

“I tell my girls all the time, the famous John Wooden statement of ‘Be quick, but don’t hurry.’ We are very fast-paced, but at the end of the game when we’re up we just need to control the ball,” Kauffman said. “My goal was that last minute to have no turnovers. That didn’t quite happen. That’s something that we’re learning, we need to grow with yet, is to keep composed when the other team is rushing. I think part of it was Churubusco was on the frantic end of things, and I think we started playing at their pace. We’ve just got to keep our composure at those times and take care of the ball.”

LCA benefitted from a balanced offense that saw both Calizo and Fancil score 13 — the latter pouring in 12 in the second half — while fellow starters Jess Slone and Reimink finished with eight and seven, respectively. Slone added 10 rebounds, while Calizo nearly recorded a double-double with nine caroms, Reimink dished out three assists, and Fancil notched two assists, two steals and two blocks in a strong all-around showing.

“We have scoring threats from inside, we have scoring threats from outside, and we have multiple,” said Kauffman. “The last couple years we’ve had one or two that you could stop, and the rest of the team is there but we’d never seen a lot of scoring from the rest of the team. This year everybody is shooting. We’re gaining confidence, telling the girls ‘Every time you see an open shot, just shoot.’ And that takes the pressure away from some of the other players — Fancil and Tori — and really opens some stuff up for us when we have multiple girls ready to shoot and to be threats out there.”

Busco was paced by Brein Gross’ seven points and six apiece from Mariah Hosted and Tonkel, meanwhile. Myah Bear finished with 10 rebounds, but the Eagles found themselves out rebounded by a 47-32 margin by their hosts, including 14 offensive boards for 11 second-chance points by LCA as Busco dropped its third straight at the front end of the season.

“That is one of our team goals this year is to out-rebound every opponent. We have length, especially from our guards as well, so our focus this year is offense and defense, we’ve got to crash those boards and no easy second-chance points,” said Kauffman. “Churubusco did a great job of crashing the offensive rebounds, but, yeah, definitely our focus especially with our length from our guards and our posts is to crash the boards and be physical on the inside.”

The Cougars are off to a 2-0 start for the third time in as many years under Kauffman’s stewardship, outscoring South Bend Career Academy and Busco by a combined 108-52 margin in that span. They’ll play their road-opener at Lakewood Park Christian Thursday with tip-off scheduled for 7:30 p.m.

“I see the potential of the girls. It’s just whether they believe in themselves is the next step — getting them to believe,” said Kauffman. “We have the multiple scoring threats. We have the intensity. We have great senior leaders that are pouring into the girls and getting the team fired up. Our culture is much different than three years ago when I started. Definitely, the start of the season I’ve been happy with, but definitely not a surprise. I’ve seen it in practice.”

Churubusco won the JV contest, 41-10. Leading LCA’s JV was Lauren Starrett with four points. Darian Manth notched nine for the Eagles.