Western Kentucky looked like it was on its way to an easy win Thursday, up 19-2 on Southern Miss in the first quarter.

Things changed as the game went on, but the Lady Toppers still got the victory.

WKU let its 17-point lead slip but held tough late to get a 54-53 win against the Golden Eagles on the road in Hattiesburg, Miss.

Redshirt junior Kendall Noble came up big late for the Lady Toppers (23-5 overall, 14-3 Conference USA). The guard, who’s one of six candidates for the C-USA Player of the Year award, scored WKU’s final seven points and finished with a game-high 20 points.

“I think we locked down and got stops when we needed to and big-time rebounds,” Noble told the Daily News in a postgame phone interview. “We just kind of grinded it out.”

The Lady Toppers remained in a second-place tie in the C-USA standings with Middle Tennessee, which edged Florida Atlantic 71-65 on Thursday night. WKU would be the No. 3 seed in next week’s C-USA Tournament in Birmingham, Ala., if current standings held.

Southern Miss fell to 14-14 overall and 7-10 with the loss. Guard Brittanny Dinkins scored a team-high 19 points for the Golden Eagles.

She and her Southern Miss teammates outscored the Lady Toppers 49-35 over the final three quarters, but couldn’t overcome their 22 turnovers.

The Golden Eagles were 12-1 at Reed Green Coliseum before Thursday night’s game.

“This is a tough place to play,” WKU coach Michelle-Clark Heard said. “There’s a reason why they’ve only lost one game at home in conference. …

“We made (17) turnovers and I think it was definitely a great learning experience for us. The greatest thing about it is it was a great learning experience, but we got the win.”

Southern Miss scored the first two points Thursday before WKU scored the next 19. The Lady Toppers’ 19-0 run spanned the time between the 7:41 and :18 marks of the first quarter.

WKU forced a whopping 14 turnovers over the game’s first 10 minutes as it took a 19-4 lead into the second quarter.

“We were being aggressive,” Heard said. “Our press was working. We were turning them over and we were able to come down and score some.”

The Lady Toppers lost their focus some in the second quarter, Noble said. WKU began having turnover issues of its own, and a Keri Jewett-Giles basket cut the margin to 21-16 with 4:09 left in the first half.

“I think we definitely let up and took our foot off the gas,” Noble said. “We don’t need to do that. … We just made too many turnovers that led to easy baskets and let them back into the game.”

The Lady Toppers regained their footing and took a 32-22 lead into halftime, but Southern Miss didn’t go away in the third quarter.

The Golden Eagles got the margin within 39-38 on a Caitlin Jenkins jumper with 1:46 to play in the third period. Then they took their first lead since the opening minutes of the game on a Shayla Wilson basket with 39 seconds left in the third that made the score 40-39.

WKU and Southern Miss spent the rest of the third period and the fourth quarter swapping the lead back and forth.

The Golden Eagles built their lead up to 49-47 with 2:24 left in the game on a Brittny Norris free throw.

A Noble three-point play 25 seconds later put the Lady Toppers back in front, 50-49.

“I feel like I want the ball at the end of the game,” Noble said. “Coach Heard tells me to go get it, so that’s what I was trying to do.”

Noble hit three out of her next four free throws while the Lady Toppers got stops on the other end, building the WKU advantage to 53-49 with 41 seconds to play.

A Jewett-Giles jumper trimmed the margin to 53-51 with 26 seconds left. Noble was fouled on the other end and hit one of two free throws, making it 54-51 with 15 seconds remaining.

The Lady Toppers got an offensive rebound off Noble’s second free throw, but an Ivy Brown turnover gave the ball back to Southern Miss.

The Golden Eagles missed a chance at a game-tying 3-pointer. Jenkins came up with an offensive rebound and hit two free throws with less than three seconds to play to make it 54-53.

WKU turned the ball over on its final possession but Southern Miss was unable to put up a final shot.

“It kept going back and forth,” Heard said. “We’d go up and then they’d come back and take the lead and we’d take the lead. I was just really proud of our resiliency.”

Sophomore forward Tashia Brown added 11 points for WKU to complement Noble’s 20. Jenkins joined Dinkins in double-figures scoring for the Golden Eagles, totaling 11 points and nine rebounds.

The Lady Toppers will finish up their regular season at 7 p.m. Saturday when they face Louisiana Tech.

Notes

Heard is now 99-30 in four years at WKU and is 123-62 overall. … The all-time series between the Lady Toppers and Southern Miss is tied 2-2. … The Golden Eagles’ four first-quarter points were the fewest scored by a WKU opponent in a quarter this season. … Freshman forward Dee Givens matched her career-high with six rebounds. … Attendance at Reed Green Coliseum was 1,382.

-Follow Daily News sports reporter Brad Stephens on Twitter at twitter.com/stephens_brad or visit bgdailynews.com.