MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The West Virginia women’s soccer team sat in the video room of their practice facility reviewing their 2-0 win over Big 12 Conference rivals Oklahoma. Renae Cuellar’s presence on the Sooners’ attack during the Oct. 18 clash had caused WVU’s back line to drop deeper than usual to reduce the space in behind that the skilled 22-year-old Mexican international could exploit.

There was an instant when senior center-back Mallory Smith stepped forward and was beaten by an opponent. Her fellow defenders stayed disciplined, holding their shape and allowing Smith to quickly recover, make an interception and launch a WVU counter attack.

“It’s moments like that when you realize our defense is really clicking,” said Mountaineers goalkeeper Sara Keane. “We’re starting to understand when to go, when to stay, and if we go then how to cover each other.”

Getting to this point wasn’t easy for a West Virginia team shorn of three defenders from last year’s Big East championship-winning side and hampered by pre-season injuries and selection problems. The Mountaineers lost three of their opening five games in August. They haven’t been beaten since, propelling them to the Big 12 regular season title in their conference debut and the No. 1 seed for next week’s conference championship in San Antonio, Texas.

“We’ve put a target on our backs which isn’t a bad thing,” Keane told TopDrawerSoccer.com prior to the team’s departure for Friday’s final regular-season game at Texas. “We wanted to do that. We wanted to prove that we could play and that the Big East isn’t a weak conference.”

West Virginia’s head coach Nikki Izzo-Brown lives by the motto “Defense Wins Championships.” Only senior left-back Bry McCarthy had any previous experience of playing in WVU’s back four at the start of the campaign. A pre-season ACL injury to highly-rated newcomer Carly Black prompted a central defensive pairing of converted midfielder Smith and freshman midfielder Leah Emaus. Jess Crowder, another player more used to the territory around the center circle, slid into the right-back slot after some other options had been tried.

“It was tough finding everyone’s comforts and discomforts,” Keane said. “Everyone’s going to make mistakes, but they’re smaller now and easier to fix.”

The Mountaineers recorded three shutout wins in compiling a 6-0-1 conference record ahead of their trip to the Longhorns. The sole blip, a 1-1 tie with Baylor on Oct. 12, came when Dana Larsen’s free kick rescued a point for the Bears with just 13 seconds remaining. Such frugality seemed unlikely when West Virginia fell to La Salle and Central Michigan in their early games. Those reverses, perhaps unfairly, continue to weigh on the team in the national rankings.

“We had problems with gaps where the ball would be slotted through and it’s 1-vs-1,” Keane said. “Izzo does such a great job as a defensive coach to make sure that we know exactly where to be.

“She puts us in all different scenarios so that anything that comes our way during the game, there’s a good chance we already went through it in practice,” the sophomore goalkeeper said.

One of the harsh realities facing the Mountaineers should they reach the Big 12 tournament final on Nov. 4 is the intensity of three games in five days against tough teams with little to separate them. Five of West Virginia’s six victories came via a single goal margin. Twenty of the conference’s 32 regular-season games going into the final weekend have ended that way with six games being tied. Keeping the ball out of the net will be crucial in determining who will lift the championship.

“It’s hard to break teams down at this point,” Izzo-Brown told TopDrawerSoccer.com. “When you let one in, it’s going to be hard to get one back. It’s going to be who’s going to make the mistake and who’s going to capitalize, for sure.”

Ian Thomson is a freelance soccer reporter and founder of The Soccer Observer Web site. Follow him on Twitter at @SoccerObserver.