Box Score MANKATO, Minn. - The Bethany women's basketball team came into the second to last game of the season determined not to let Minn.-Morris clinch the outright UMAC regular season championship on their home court. The Cougars, though, raced out to a big lead and held off the Vikings to claim their fifth straight conference crown with a 67-52 win.

Bethany fell behind 11-0 before Jade Pelzl hit a jumper to start a 6-2 run. Pelzl ended the run with another shot to pull BLC within 13-6. The Cougars followed with a 10-0 run and would lead 34-23 at the break.

The Vikings cut the deficit to single digits after Aimie Wiechmann drained a 3 to start the second half making it 34-26. UMM built the lead back to double digits for the next minutes. Pelzl, though, connected from behind the arc to pull the Vikings within nine with 8:49 to go. The Cougars brought the lead back up to double figures and would win the contest by 15.

Pelzl led Bethany with 19 points and Kasslin Swenson had another monster rebounding effort pulling down 16 boards.

Bethany (8-16, 5-8 in UMAC) closes out the season with a home game against Crown at 3 p.m. Saturday.