MOSCOW - Down by eight points on the road in the second half, the second-seeded Lakeland Hawks battled back to upend the top-seeded Moscow Bears 48-45 on Thursday night in Bear Den to advance to the championship game of the 4A Region 1 girls basketball tournament.

Cieana Close totaled 17 points, five rebounds and five steals to lead Lakeland (12-10).

"We haven't always answered the gut-check call, but it was a lot of fun to coach and a lot of fun to play - just an exciting district tournament game," Lakeland coach Steve Seymour said. "We kept chipping away, kept the pressure on, got just enough baskets, a couple of runouts and made a couple of big buckets."

Moscow (6-15) plays host to Sandpoint (7-14) on Saturday in a loser-out game. Lakeland plays the winner on Tuesday for the regional title.

Neena Buchmann added 10 points and five rebounds for Lakeland. Darby Murray had five steals and three assists and Kerstyn Reed had six rebounds.

"It was a gutsy effort on their part," Seymour said.

Abi Quinnett led Moscow with 15 points.

Lakeland 8 13 14 13 - 48

Moscow 11 15 13 6 - 45

LAKELAND - Babor 0, Murray 6, Coder 4, Reed 0, Davis 6, Buchmann 10, Close 17, Tapplin 5.

MOSCOW - Davis 0, Gorton 2, Redinger 1, Sprenger 2, Olmstead 7, Bigler 4, A. Quinnett 15, Anderson 10, C. Quinnett 4.