PREP BASEBALL: Richards hurls Coeur d'Alene back to state

LEWISTON - Together Everyone Achieves More.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Coeur d'Alene Viking baseball team did it, as a team.

Colin Richards threw a one-hitter, striking out eight, and Devin Kluss scored two runs as the second-seeded Vikings beat the top-seeded Lewiston Bengals 4-2 in the 5A Region 1 championship game at Church Field.

Coeur d'Alene (18-7), which won its fifth straight regional title, advances to the state tournament at Memorial Stadium in Boise next week. The Vikings will face the fourth-place team from District 3 (Boise) in their opener next Thursday at 3:30 p.m. PDT.

"This is a tightly knit group of selfless kids," Coeur d'Alene coach Nick Rook said. "It's just a special group of young men. Colin threw exceptional. He's an amazing young man to get the save last night and to throw a one-hitter today, he made some huge pitches at critical points in the game."

Michael Hicks delivered a two-run double to give Coeur d'Alene a 3-0 lead after the top of the first inning.

Jackson Sumner hit an RBI single to left field to score Kluss to give Coeur d'Alene a 4-2 lead.

Tyler Gay had Lewiston's lone hit in the top of the first inning.

Lewiston (20-6) will host Lake City (16-10) in the tournament second-place game at 4 p.m. on Thursday at Church Field.

Coeur d'Alene 301 000 0 - 4 7 1

Lewiston 200 000 0 - 2 1 0

Collin Richards and Cameron Luckey, Reggie Nault (3); Kade Woods and Jessup Scott. W - Richards (7-1). L - Woods.

HITS: Cd'A - Plum 2, Kluss, Hicks, Sumner, Carter. Lew - Gay. 2B - Hicks.

Lake City 4

Post Falls 3

COEUR d'ALENE - Cody Garza's base hit fell in front of the left fielder, then took a crazy bounce and rolled all the way to the fence for a triple, scoring Jarred Hall from first base with the winning run for the Timberwolves in the loser-out game.

Lake City (16-10) bouncing back from a tough loss on Monday at Coeur d'Alene, will travel to top-seeded Lewiston (20-6) on Thursday in a loser-out game.

"It almost seemed like us kind of waiting to see how they were going to respond, and luckily they did," Lake City

RBI singles by Dalton Lozier in the third inning and Max McCullough in the fifth inning staked Post Falls (7-18) to a 2-0 lead.

In the bottom of the fifth, RBI singles by Jordan Ross and Garza tied the game, and Dominic Conigliaro drew a bases-loaded walk to put Lake City up 3-2.

"It's kind of been the story of our season," Post Falls coach Dustin Frank said. "One or two plays offensively or defensively away from winning. But our boys played really hard. Yesterday and today, we pitched well. It was nice to see the kids playing good baseball at the end of the season."

Post Falls 001 011 0 - 3 11 2

Lake City 000 030 1 - 4 8 0

0 out when winning run scored.

Jake Pfennigs, Jacob Elliott (5) and Treavor Hammell; Sam Slusser, Dominic Conigliaro (7) and Reilly Cherry. W - Conigliaro. L - Elliott.

HITS: PF - Lozier 3, Setian 3, Hunt, Elliott, Koski 2, McCullough. LC - Ross 2, Hall, Garza 2, Conigliaro, Seaman, Slusser. 2B - Setian, Lozier, Koski. 3B - Garza.