FRISCO, TEXAS — The Western Kentucky women’s basketball team used one of its best defensive quarters of the season to race past UTSA 70-55 on Friday in the Conference USA tournament semifinals at The Star.

WKU (19-12) broke open a close game with a strong third quarter and cruised from there to earn its first trip to the Conference USA championship, where the Lady Toppers will face top seed Middle Tennessee State.

“I’m just thankful for the win,” WKU coach Greg Collins said. “I couldn’t be more proud of these young ladies and how they played defense tonight. When you can hold a great player like Jordyn Jenkins to two made field goals and six field goal attempts — I know she was in a little bit of foul trouble, but still played 20 minutes — when you can do that, you’ve got a team full of young ladies that are locked in on the game plan and really focused on executing.

“… I’m really proud of that because that exemplifies this team.”

Jenkins, the Conference USA Player of the Year, struggled for the third time this season against WKU. She picked up two fouls in the first 90 seconds and spent most of the first half on the bench in Friday’s semifinal matchup.

Without Jenkins, UTSA was still able to build a 12-8 first-quarter lead before WKU scored the final five points of the quarter — including a 3-pointer from Hope Sivori that gave the Lady Tops a 13-12 advantage.

WKU pushed the lead to as much as nine points in the second quarter, with UTSA getting within two before a Teresa Faustino layup in the final seconds made the score 34-30 at halftime.

Jenkins returned to start the second half, but WKU still extended the advantage to 39-30 — holding the Roadrunners without a field goal for nearly four minutes to start the third quarter. UTSA finally broke into the scoring column in the second half on a layup from Kyra White, but WKU answered with three straight 3s — one from Faustino and two from Karris Allen — to push the score to 48-34.

Jenkins picked up two offensive fouls and went back to the bench with four fouls and WKU continued to pull away, with Sivori’s 3 making the score 53-36 after three. WKU outscored UTSA 19-6 in the quarter, holding the Roadrunners to 3-for-14 shooting with seven turnovers.

“We hold them to six points that third quarter,” Collins said. “We made some 3s, that is the fun stuff, everybody gets excited about that. When you can hold any team to six points in a quarter, you have done a pretty good job on defense.”

Jordan Smith got in on the action with back-to-back 3s to open the fourth, giving WKU its largest lead of the night at 59-38. Smith, who appeared in three conference games prior to Friday’s win, totaled six points with a block in 11 minutes of action.

“Jordan has worked her tail off and that is why it really is a team,” Collins said. “She comes to practice and competes every day. She works on her shooting every day.

“… We’ve got smart kids out there, playing really hard and playing unselfishly. That’s a good combination. I’m thrilled for Jordan to have this moment.”

WKU milked the clock from there, using its depth to wear down a team playing for the third time in three days. UTSA was unable to mount much of a fourth-quarter comeback, with the lead never dipping below 14 points the rest of the way.

“First of all we knew they were without their best player, so that gave us extra fuel for that,” Faustino said. “The bench is always a continuation for our starting five, so once we got in we knew we had to have the same energy they had.

“I think we all stayed ready whenever our name got called. We had more hustle than our opponent and we took advantage of that. We got them tired and that was really what won us the game today.”

Eight players scored at least six points for the Lady Toppers. Jaylin Foster led the way with 13 points, while Sivori and Acacia Hayes added 10 points each. WKU finished 8-for-18 from 3 in the second half.

WKU has won five in a row and is 15-4 after a 4-8 start.

“I felt like in June, when we were getting ready to go to Italy, we had a team that could compete at a high level,” Collins said. “We played fairly well overseas and then we came back and (had) some injuries, Mya wasn’t quite back yet and then we just didn’t quite click yet. We kept working at (it). You have to trust that process.

“… Really about three weeks ago, the communication took a big jump. All of sudden I noticed in practice — and I stopped and told them — they are not just talking about what they are doing, they are talking and solving problems as they play. I told them that is high-level stuff.”

WKU will face Middle Tennessee in the championship game at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday at The Star.

The Lady Toppers are guaranteed at least one more game regardless of what happens. A win gives WKU the automatic bid in the NCAA Tournament. A loss and WKU would get the Conference USA automatic bid to the WNIT as the highest finisher in conference play not in the NCAA Tournament.

“Right now we don’t care about that,” Collins said. “We want to play tomorrow. We’re glad we are playing tomorrow and we’ll show up.”