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COEUR d’ALENE — Katy Ryan totaled 22 points, eight rebounds and nine blocked shots, and the top-seeded Lakeland Hawks started fast en route to a 51-37 victory over the third-seeded Moscow Bears in Game 1 of the best-of-3 4A Region 1 championship series Tuesday night at North Idaho College’s Rolly Williams Court.

Lakeland (9-11) plays host to Moscow (8-14) on Friday at 6 p.m. in Game 2, needing one win to advance to state. If Moscow wins, Game 3 would be Saturday at Moscow.

Lauryn Cooper hit two 3-pointers, Mel Loutzenhiser one in the first quarter for Lakeland, which jumped out to a 15-7 lead. The Hawks led 26-14 at the half.

“We shot the ball a little better tonight,” Lakeland coach Steve Seymour said. “We did a good job of getting to the right spots defensively, and put a little more pressure on the ball.

“And we rebounded pretty well,” he added. “Moscow rebounds a ton, they just go hard after the ball, and I thought we held our own in the first half.”

Megan Watson, Peyton Claus and Megan Jung each scored eight points for Moscow, which closed to within seven points three minutes into the fourth quarter, before Loutzenhiser hit a 12-footer to curb the Bears’ momentum.

Loutzenhiser finished with four assists, Cooper three steals.

Moscow 7 7 9 14 — 37

Lakeland 15 11 8 17 — 51

MOSCOW — M. Watson 8, Rauch 3, Claus 8, P. Watson 2, Anderson 6, Jung 8, Bazzoli 0, Hansen 2.

LAKELAND — Boyer 0, Cooper 9, Kime 0, Cooley 0, McDevitt 0, Elpers 5, Loutzenhiser 9, Kirk 6, Ryan 22, Neff 0."

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