Kicking in his first game for Birmingham, Ramiz Ahmed made a 46-yard field goal with four seconds to play to keep the Stallions unbeaten in the United Football League.

Ahmed joined the team this week because Birmingham’s regular kicker, Chris Blewitt, has a quadriceps injury. Ahmed’s fourth field goal on Saturday night lifted the Stallions to a 20-18 victory over the D.C. Defenders at Protective Stadium in Birmingham.

Ahmed also connected from 46 yards on the final snap of the second quarter to give Birmingham an 11-6 halftime lead, then added field goals of 32 and 27 yards in the second half as the Stallions stayed the UFL’s only undefeated team four weeks into the season and extended their winning streak to 11 games.

“We’ve got rent-a-kicker for a week, and he came out and what he did really was unbelievable,” Stallions coach Skip Holtz said. “I told him I’m going to have to learn his name now after he went and did what he did today. He was money. Just really proud of what he was able to do and the way that he handled pressure and the kicks that he made in some really, really tough conditions with the ball being wet and slippery.”

Birmingham needed Ahmed’s final field goal after the Defenders took an 18-17 lead on Matthew McCrane’s 39-yard field goal with 1:04 to play.

After the Stallions took possession with 59 seconds left, quarterback Matt Corral had consecutive completions of 10 yards to wide receiver Deon Cain, 15 yards to wide receiver Amari Rodgers and 6 yards to wide receiver Kevin Austin Jr. to move Birmingham to the D.C. 28-yard line with 19 seconds left.

Two incompletions later, Ahmed’s field goal won the game.

It was the second straight possession that an Ahmed field goal had given Birmingham the lead. After three straight punts by the Stallions and nine unanswered points by the Defenders, Birmingham trailed 15-14 when, on consecutive snaps, Corral scrambled for 20 yards and connected with tight end Jace Sternberger for a 27-yard gain to the D.C. 16. Ahmed put the Stallions ahead 17-15 with 3:26 remaining.

Birmingham had alternated Corral and Adrian Martinez at quarterback in two-series increments in its first two games, before Martinez went all the way under center in last week’s 33-14 victory over the Memphis Showboats. Even though Martinez passed for 344 yards and two touchdowns and ran for another TD, Corral went almost all the way at quarterback on Saturday night, coming out briefly on the first possession because of ankle issue.

Corral completed 19-of-29 passes for 240 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions and ran for 51 yards on seven carries.

Holtz said he knew fans would think he was “crazy” for going to Corral on Saturday night after Martinez’s performance last week.

“I couldn’t be more proud of the job that Matt did tonight as a quarterback, stepping in and some of the things he did,” Holtz said. “… I don’t know what I’ll do going forward, to be honest with you. I pretty much had a plan through today, and I don’t know what I’ll do going forward. I’ve got two quality quarterbacks that are really good football players.”

Birmingham’s only touchdown against the Defenders came on a short pass from Corral to Rodgers. The wide receiver broke a tackle and accelerated away to a 50-yard TD as the Stallions tied the game at 6-6 with 2:58 left in the first half.

The game never made it to the traditional halftime. With 1:56 to play in the second quarter, the teams were sent off the field for a lightning delay. The delay lasted so long that when play resumed, the game went directly into the third quarter when the first half concluded.

The return to play in the pouring rain included a bad snap by the Defenders in punt formation that resulted in a safety for the Stallions to break a 6-6 tie with 1:50 left in the first half.

Birmingham’s need to win the game at very end could be traced to the Stallions’ reluctance to do so at the beginning. Birmingham’s first two series ended in lost fumbles with the Stallions at the Defenders 2- and 3-yard lines. Those miscues were followed by a punt blocked by D.C. wide receiver Kelvin Harmon, who also caught a 45-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Jordan Ta’amu in the third quarter.

While moving to 4-0, the Stallions dropped the Defenders to 2-2.

Birmingham visits the Houston Roughnecks at 6 p.m. CDT Saturday at Rice Stadium in Houston for its next game. FOX will televise the contest.

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.