Southwestern’s Kathleen Luce looks to pass during the Lakers’ game against Umpqua on Wednesday. World Photo by Alex Powers.

Stacia Rustad’s first season as coach of the women’s basketball team at Southwestern Oregon Community College ended on a positive note Wednesday.

The Lakers didn’t win their regular-season finale against visiting Umpqua Community College, but they did have their best offensive output of the year against one of the top teams in all of NWAACC.

Umpqua beat the Lakers 99-77, but there was a lot for the home team to be happy with.

“The team played hard — the best we’ve played in a while,” said Kathleen Luce, one of six sophomores honored before their final home game. “I thought we played well as a team.”

The Lakers played with the Riverhawks for most of the first half. Briana Wallace had four 3-pointers in the opening 12 minutes, her last one sparking a run that resulted in the Lakers going in front 28-27 on a jumper in the lane by Luce with 7:15 to go in the half.

The Lakers got one more lead, on a shot by Kristine Kosinski, and still were tied at 32 on a 3-pointer by Rachael Richardson before the Riverhawks finished the half on a 13-4 run.

Southwestern pulled within nine points several times early in the second half — the last time on Wallace’s fifth 3-pointer — before Umpqua pulled away, eventually leading by as many as 24 points.

Wallace finished with 32 points and Richardson added 20 for the Lakers, who had an offensive outburst after several poor outings.

“It seems like in the second half of the season we were getting a lot of shot attempts, but nothing was going in,” Wallace said.

The Lakers didn’t shoot a great percentage Wednesday, hitting 21-for-71 (29.6 percent). But the volume of shots was outstanding.

“Offensively, we moved the ball very well,” Rustad said. “Joy (Ribao) did a good job of getting the ball up the floor and finding the open shooters.”

Softening the negative aspects of the loss was the quality of the opponent.

“They’re definitely going to go far in NWAACCs,” Wallace said of the Riverhawks. “They’re a very good team.”

The Riverhawks (11-3 in league, 25-4 overall) finished second in the South Region after being ranked No. 1 in NWAACC earlier in the year.

“You look player to player, we’re outmatched at every position,” Rustad said. “To only get beat by 22 points, I was pleased with our effort.”

The Riverhawks shot over 50 percent (37-for-70), with the biggest challenge for Southwestern being post player Deanna Tupai, who dwarfed her defenders in girth and showed a soft touch around the basket while pushing her way in for easy shots off good passes from her teammates. Tupai hit all six of her shot attempts in the second half and finished 12-for-15 from the floor, scoring 31 points.

Nearly as effective was Marissa Towry, who hit eight of her first nine shots, including two 3-pointers, and scored 24 on the night to go with seven assists. Kristi Fallin added 15 points, all in the second half.

The final game certainly did not put a depressing footnote on Rustad’s initial season. Instead, the returning players already are looking ahead to next year.

“I definitely feel like the program is going in the right direction,” said Wallace, a freshman from Gold Beach, giving praise to Rustad for her effort.

“She’s a great person,” Wallace said. “She’s going to take the program so far up.”

Rustad, who sets extremely high standards for herself and her team, looked at the season from a couple different angles.

On one hand, the Lakers nearly beat Clackamas and Linn-Benton twice each, but came up short in every game. Both those teams will play in the NWAACC tournament.

From that angle, Rustad’s unhappy with the season, since those two teams are in the tournament ahead of the Lakers. Rustad also was disappointed the team had just three league wins and nine wins overall.

On the other hand, the Lakers showed a strong work ethic the entire season while only having a couple of handfuls of days off since the first day of school, which also was the first day of practice.

“My kids played hard for me every day,” Rustad said. “They played hard for themselves.”

And the Lakers were competitive in all but three of the league games, a huge improvement from last year.

Another plus is a good core of players coming back, led by Wallace and Richardson, who had five 3-pointers each.

Of Southwestern’s top five scorers in the finale, only Luce, who had seven points, is a sophomore. Kristen Lorenzo had nine points and Kosinski added seven.

“Rachael Richardson and Briana Wallace are going to be the backbone of the team and that’s no secret,” Rustad said. “They understand the philosophy of my program. We’ll build around that.”

The sophomores honored before the game included South Coast graduates Luce, from Powers, and Lacey Weinblatt, from Pacific. The others were Ribao, Veronica Rand, Megan Eng and Kamisha Abram.

The Lakers also had an honorary captain for the game, Marshfield graduate Catherine Hampton, who played basketball and volleyball for the Lakers in the 1990s and also was an assistant coach for the basketball team for two seasons.

Umpqua 99, Southwestern 77

UMPQUA (99): Deanna Tupai 31, Marissa Towry 24, Kristi Fallin 15, Miranda Holenstein 6, Corynn Jorgenson 6, Jacqueline Anderson 5, Denay Martin 4, Cassie Scheffelmaier 4, Kayla Haines 2, Samantha Russell 2, Marji Maxfield.

SOUTHWESTERN (77): Briana Wallace 32, Rachael Richardson 20, Kristen Lorenzo 9, Kristine Kosinski 7, Kathleen Luce 7, Joy Ribao 2, Emma Chitwood, Megan Eng, Caitlin Killinger, Rachael Matthews, Veronica Rand.

Halftime: Umpqua 45-36.