RATHDRUM - In the previous two years, Lakeland's baseball team has leaned on its pitching to survive a five-game regional tournament to advance to state.

Armed with more pitching this season, the Hawks completed the job a lot sooner in 2012 - beating the Moscow Bears 7-1 in the championship game of the 4A Region 1 tournament Saturday.

Lakeland (16-5) advances to state at Rodeo Park in Nampa, and will face Bishop Kelly (24-1) in the opening game Thursday at 9 a.m. PDT.

“I’ve known from the get-go we had the team to do it,” Lakeland coach Jason Bradbury said. “We’ve got a deep pitching staff and each one of them is a quality pitcher. Our hitters aren’t afraid of anything.”

Junior left-hander Troy Carr allowed three hits and struck out six in a complete-game win for Lakeland.

“It feels really good,” Carr said. “It was nice to win it here and have all our fans here. It was nice to win it in front of them.”

“He was phenomenal today,” Bradbury said. “He doesn’t throw extra hard, but he’s got a beautiful changeup and curve ball and can pop the fastball when he needs to. They weren’t able to string any kind of hits together.”

Lakeland won at Moscow last year and at Sandpoint two years ago to advance to state. This year, it took the Hawks just two games to advance.

“It takes a lot of the pressure off,” said Bradbury of winning at home. “I told them before the game I didn’t want to give them any signs of life. Baseball’s a funny game and you never know what happens.”

Bradbury was especially happy the team won and avoided an extra championship game after battling the flu on Friday.

“I wasn’t doing really well yesterday,” Bradbury said. “I was throwing up all day and I told them I’d appreciate it if they could get it done so I could go home and go back to bed.”

Nathan Collier hit a two-run double in the second inning to get the Lakeland offense going.

“We hadn’t done anything up until that point,” Bradbury said. “We came out early and scored some runs on them, but not because of us.”

Collier played on the last two state qualifiers at Coeur d’Alene High before transferring this year.

“This is a great group of guys,” Collier said. “We’re a really tight-knit group. Most of us eat lunch together and it’s great to be a part of it. I think we’ve got a chance to make some noise at state. We’re hitting the ball really well and our pitchers are throwing strikes. I think we’ve got a good chance to win some games.”

Eric Cooper had an RBI double and Joe Schwalbach scored three runs for Lakeland.

Moscow 000 001 0 — 1 3 2

Lakeland 240 001 x — 7 7 1

Kellen Martin, Tanner Morgan (2) and Alec Martin; Troy Carr and James Prockish. W — Carr (4-1). L — K. Martin.

HITS: Mos — Johnson, Morgan, Redinger. LL — Prockish, Johnson, Schwalbach, Cooper, Collier, Galbraith, Jackson. 2B — Redinger, Schwalbach, Cooper, Collier, Galbraith.