The Western Kentucky soccer team picked up its first-ever Conference USA Tournament victory, and did it without the league’s best player.

The Lady Toppers shut out UAB 1-0 on Tuesday in Houston in the opening round of the C-USA Tournament without Ambere Barnett on the pitch, a day after she was named the conference’s Player of the Year and Midfielder of the Year.

“Every game now is a special moment. We keep talking about moments and about living in the moment,” WKU coach Jason Neidell said. “We said before the game that we were going to need to be stingy and proud defensively and then there was going to be moments of brilliance for someone and they were going to have to come through for us, and that’s exactly the way the game went.

“I’m just extremely proud of our players for sticking together and finding a way to grind out a win. As they say every year during March Madness it’s just survive and advance, and that was kind of our mentality today.”

Barnett, WKU’s top offensive threat this season, was injured less than 20 seconds into the second half of Friday’s 1-0 victory over Charlotte that clinched the program’s first regular-season conference title since 2013, when it was a member of the Sun Belt. Neidell said after Tuesday’s match Barnett would not be ready for Thursday’s semifinal.

Tuesday’s win was the Lady Toppers’ first in a conference tournament since the 2013 Sun Belt Conference Tournament, and the first since the program joined C-USA ahead of the 2014 season.

And it came with another strong defensive effort.

The Lady Toppers are now unbeaten in 10 straight matches, with the only loss on the year coming in the season opener at North Alabama 4-1 on Feb. 6. WKU has shut out five opponents this season, including clean sheets in three of its last four matches.

On Tuesday, UAB recorded nine shots and had five on goal – all five of which resulted in saves from 6-foot-1 sophomore goalkeeper Ashley Kobylinski.

“We’re all just so stuck on our goal. Our goal is to win and we’re all sticking together. We all have the mindset of this is our story. We’re ready to write that story, and we want that to be with winning a conference tournament,” Kobylinski said. “We did that with winning the East Division and everyone is just so focused and everyone is working so well together. We just want to write our story and show what we’re all about.”

WKU found the back of the net for the game’s only goal in the 33rd minute when Annah Hopkins cleaned up a ball misplayed by UAB keeper Anika Toth off a WKU free kick near midfield.

The Lady Toppers held steady from there, limiting the Blazers to just one of their six corners in the game in the second half while withstanding six shots during the final 45 minutes. UAB had its best opportunity in the 72nd minute on a penalty kick, but Kamilah Mustafa’s attempt went off the crossbar and WKU preserved the shutout from there.

“We talk about it all the time, but defending is a total team effort and there’s no doubt that the back four have been incredibly steady, led by Lyric (Schmidt) and Avery (Jacobsen) in the middle in the back, and Ashley Kobylinski has had a breakthrough year for us – there’s no doubt that those five have been just incredible – but defending starts up higher on the field with our forwards and their efforts as the first line of defense, and I can say very proudly that this is the best total defensive unit that we’ve ever had,” Neidell said.

WKU will face the winner of Tuesday’s second quarterfinal between North Texas and Charlotte in a semifinal match scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Thursday.{&end}