They didn’t have much to play for, but they weren’t settling for a loss.

The Riverland women’s basketball team overcame a first half set-back to beat Fergus Falls 78-66 in thier last game of the season in Riverland Gym Saturday.

RCC, which didn’t qualify for the state tournament, took a 28-18 lead early, but the Spartans scored the next 11 to take a 29-28 lead. RCC (11-15 overall, 3-9 MCAC South) scored the next eight as Joni Lillo had six points in the run, and the Blue Devils led 39-34 at the break.

“I don’t know what we where doing (early on), but we just needed a little pep talk at halftime and we were good to go,” said RCC forward Krista Viehauser, who finished with 26 points, 10 rebounds, five steals and two blocked shots. “We wanted this one real bad. We’ve had few losses lately, so we were hoping to finish with a win.”

The Spartans pulled to within 47-45 with 14:56 left in the game and the Blue Devils scored the next 10 as Lillo hit a three and drove for a score during the rally.

When the Spartans hit a pair of threes to creep back to within 57-51, RCC put the game away with a 10-0 run that saw Mandy May, who had four assists, score twice on drives to the hoop.

“There were a lot of momentum swings. They would get a little run and we would swing right back,” RCC head coach Suzy Hebrink said. “I think we did a nice job of regaining our focus every time we started to lose it. It was a nice game to finish on.”

Whle May helped control the tempo, Gretchen Hebrink added five points, four assists and two steals for RCC.

“I thought Mandy and Gretchen both did a nice job for us in their last game,” Suzy Hebrink said.

Viehauser, a freshman from Austin, was second in the MCAC South in scoring this season.

“I think my first year was pretty good and really fun,” she said. “I was able to improve a lot on my game and hopefully I’ll do that next year too.”

Fergus Falls 34 32 — 66

RCC 39 39 — 78

RCC scoring: Krista Viehauser, 26; Joni Lillo, 22; Brooke Rosenstiel, 14; Mandy May, 11; Gretchen Hebrink, 5; field goals: 35 percent (26-for-75); three-pointers: 19 percent (4-for-21); free throws: 73 percent (22-for-30); rebounds: 57 (Rosensteil, 13); turnovers: 24

Fergus Falls scoring: Emily Johnson, 16; Jess Amann, 12; Whitney Moore, 11; Kelsey Steidl, 10; Abby Wolden, 7; Kelsey Draper, 4; Denise Ripplinger, 3; Maria Lindberg, 2; Whitney Swenson, 1; field goals: 31 percent (21-for-68); three-pointers: 32 percent (8-for-25); free throws: 64 percent (16-for-25); rebounds: 49 (Darper, 8; Moore, 8); turnovers: 26