The Western Kentucky women’s basketball team got back in the win column courtesy of one the best defensive efforts of the season in Saturday’s 56-41 win over Jacksonville State at E.A. Diddle Arena.

WKU (6-18 overall, 2-11 Conference USA) held the Gamecocks to 14 points in the second half and used a decisive third quarter to take the win and snap an eight-game losing streak.

“We needed that win,” WKU sophomore Salma Khedr said. “I felt like this week especially we came back as a team together, worked out hard and it paid off. We’ve just got to keep going.”

The 38 points were the fewest points WKU has allowed in a conference game since holding UTSA to 38 on Jan. 18, 2018.

“We’ve been in spots, all the way back before Christmas — Chattanooga, and we’ve just shot ourselves in the foot or we missed shots,” WKU coach Greg Collins said. “We kind of need everything to go right. We don’t have a large margin of error, so tonight we made some shots. I was really proud of the communication, the effort on the defensive end.”

Things didn’t start well for WKU, which missed the first nine shots. Jax State (12-13, 6-7) took advantage by hitting three 3-pointers and sprinting out to a 9-0 lead five minutes in.

Khedr’s three-point play got the Lady Toppers on the board, the first of seven straight points, to trim the deficit to two. Jacksonville State scored the next seven to get the lead back to nine before WKU slowly began to whittle away the deficit before an 8-0 run capped by a 3 from Khedr gave the Lady Toppers a 26-23 advantage with 43 seconds left in the half.

Jax State regained the momentum heading into the locker room scoring the final four points — including a runner by Adriana Jones at the horn that made the score 27-26 in favor of the Gamecocks.

WKU would regain the momentum quickly in the third quarter. Trinity Rowe’s basket began a 13-0 run that pushed the Lady Toppers ahead for good. The margin grew to as many as 14 after a 3 from Tatum Boettjer late in the third. Jax State answered with a 3 on the other end, but Rowe’s jumper at the horn made the score 44-33. WKU outscored the Gamecocks 20-6 in the third, a dominant third similar to the first meeting when Jacksonville State outscored WKU 24-10 in the third en route to a 75-48 win.

The struggles continued for Jax State in the final period. Mina Djurdjevic’s 3 with 7:42 remaining that made the score 46-37 was the only field goal in the fourth for the Gamecocks. WKU held JSU to 1-for-8 in the fourth, 3-for-21 in the second half to outscored the Gamecocks 30-14 to earn the first win since Jan. 10 against UTEP.

“It gives the girls some positive reinforcement for all the work,” Collins said. “I told Reily (Chestnut) our radio guy that they continue to come into practice with great energy, great positivity, great effort. They really have. We’ve had a couple of bad days, but not very many. No, we don’t have the same laser focus like teams that are getting ready for a conference championship. That would be unrealistic to expect that. They’ve come in and worked on the things that they’ve got to do individually to be better as a team.”

Khedr led the Lady Toppers with 16 points, while Boettjer added 11 points. Tia Shelling finished with 10 points, four rebounds and five steals to pace a defense that forced 21 turnovers — 14 steals.

“I’m just trying to help wherever I can,” Shelling said. “Just trying to get my hands on a lot of balls and disrupt everything that I can. Coach always tells me to anticipate the next pass, so I did that a lot out there.”

WKU finished with a 22-4 advantage in points off turnovers and a 32-2 advantage in points in the paint.

“We were really trying to make sure that we got the ball inside,” Collins said. “You saw in the first quarter we had a tendency to play around the 3-point line. That’s why we made some of the (lineup) changes we made. We work on getting paint touches, so when we got back to that focus it changed.”

WKU will have the week off before hosting MIddle Tennessee State at 2 p.m. on Feb. 21.