Starting Tuesday, the WIAA Regionals begin, the first step towards going to the State Tournament at Stevens Point on July 29 and 30. It will take three victories to make the state tournament.

Second-seeded Brookfield Central and third-seeded Brookfield East are in the rugged Germantown sectional. Arrowhead, one of the top teams in the state this summer, is rated No. 1 and Menomonee Falls is seeded No. 4 in the regional. Fifth-seeded Slinger, sixth-seeded Germantown, seventh-seeded Pewaukee and eighth-seeded Sussex Hamilton are also solid teams.

Central hosts Pewaukee and East hosts Germantown in 5:30 p.m. games. If both Brookfield schools win they will face off for the fourth time this year on Friday at 2:30 p.m. at Germantown.

Across town, seventh-seeded Wauwatosa East and eighth-seeded Wauwatosa West will have their hands full taking on second-seeded New Berlin Eisenhower and top-seeded New Berlin West in the first rounds at 5 p.m. The New Berlin schools are the only schools out of the eight in the New Berlin West Sectional with winning records.

Good luck to the Lancers, Spartans, Red Raiders and Trojans on Tuesday.

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Some thoughts on the local baseball teams.

Brook Central - Everyone knows that Ryan Hinz, Mike Mierow, Ricky Leachy, Pete Ostergaard, Matt Upson and Danny Barwick can hit. But now senior Tim Peterson has emerged down the stretch, giving the Lancers seven tough hitters.

Look for someone like veteran Matt Gordon, Billy Maus, Collin O'Gorman, Brad Leachy or Steve Rossman to also step up.

Brook East - The Spartans need to shake off the fact that Central handled them in their big two-game series on July 9-10. They have had a good season and they need to beat a tough Germantown team on Tuesday to hopefully get another shot at the Lancers. The Jakes - Janowski and Schaffhauser - and the Syllas - Brian and Kevin - will lead this group.

But with seniors Janowski, Zach Stewart, Zach Sines, Demetri Tongas and Josh Schober making their last stand, the Spartans want to go out with a bang.

I want to give special mention to Adam Knudsen, who has done a good job in the field and has come up with some big hits from his ninth spot - and sophomore Matt Talbot, who has had some huge hits this summer.

Tosa East - Juniors Danny Sayles on the mound and Tyler O'Brien behind the plate need to come up with a big game plan to hold down Ike. The Red Raiders' chances are slim and none if this gets into a shooting match. The Brians - Schneider and Shank - have been hot recently and that's what East needs to pull an upset - more than two hitters coming through.

Tosa West - Nothing - and I repeat - nothing could be more satisfying to coach Chad Mateske and the Trojans than knocking off top-seeded New Berlin West. Spencer Lulloff needs to come up with a big performance on the mound and Chris Laskey, who has come on since returning to the catching role. 2B Alex Rehl has also been an offensive force this year.

Can the Trojans find a hero from among Josh Kundinger, Adam Orlando, Andy Minkley, Rob Dvorak or Kyle Heideman to make a big play.

If either of the Tosa schools stand a chance for victory, they must - I can't emphasize this enough - play well defensively. If either team gets good pitching, they can not have their defense let them down.

Be a hit and have a ball.

I have some administrative stuff I wanted to get out to the public, so I thought I would use my blog.

SBCGLOBAL.NET EMAIL PROBLEMS 

First of all, if you have a sbcglobal.net email I want to let you know that we here at NOW newspapers and web sites CAN NOT reply to your emails. It is a problem our IT Department is working on. I find it frustrating because I haven't been able to track down phone numbers for some people and so I can't answer their emails and I don't want them to think I don't care.

So if you have a sbcglobal.net email and want me to reply to your email, include a phone number.

TOSA LITTLE LEAGUE SCORES

I want to thank people from the Tosa Little League for following the format I asked for and I want to thank them for their patience. We have been averaging about 300 lines a week of scores. That is a lot of lines. A normal cover story is about 120-140 lines, so you can imagine how much space 300-plus lines takes up.

This past Thursday we had 340 lines and were able to print about 100. Whatever is left out is placed on top of the following week's scorecard so it won't be left out the following week. At the top of each week's scores I've been writing (3 weeks ago), (2 weeks ago) and (Last week's) scores. So once again, thanks for your cooperation, understanding and patience.

HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL TALK

It looks like Brookfield Central and Brookfield East will be right in the battle for first place in the North Division of the Greater Metro Conference. Before running into the Lancer buzzsaw this week, the Wauwatosa East Red Raiders had been playing much better this year. As for Tosa West, coach Chad Mateske will be asking for volunteers to pitch as injuries an inexperience have cut into the Trojans' pitching. Recently, the Trojans were down to about 11 active players.

BREWER TALK

I said at the beginning of the season and I will say it again, the Brewers don't have much starting pitching and their lack of OBA hitters will hurt the consistency of the offense. Yovani Gallardo - because of his inexperience - is at best a No. 2 starter - but he is a very good starting pitcher. After that, Jeff Suppan, Brad Looper and Dave Bush are No. 5 pitchers on good staffs and No. 4 pitchers on average staffs. Manny Parra is still their second-best pitcher based on that magic word "potential" and hopefully that trip to the minors will straighten him out.

Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder can play with anyone, but the Brewers need more hitters who hit for average or have a better OBA. Everyone knows that when the hitters are hot they can play with anyone. But when they are not, they are pretty hard to watch. More contact hitters equal less slumps because anything can happen when you get people on base.

You know what you get from Corey Hart, J.J. Hardy and Mike Cameron - you just don't know when you're getting it. Craig Counsell and Casey McGehee have had wonderful years on the plus side. Based on how the Brewers pitchers are performing, you can drop the let's catch Jason Kendall every day stuff because he handles the staff so well and get Mike Rivera in the lineup more than once a week.

Finally, play Mat Gamel EVERY day no matter who is pitching. He hit lefthanders better than righthanders in the minors and you will NEVER find out what kind of player he is unless he plays all the time. It is not brain surgery.

I agree with Doug Melvin - I would not even consider trading Gamel or Alcides Escobar. I would trade Hardy in a minute because of Escobar and I would trade Hart if it meant I would get a pitcher that would be here longer than three months.

The Brewers are in the Central Division race because the other teams have holes also. So they could stay in the race if everyone continues to struggle. But unlike last season, they won't be winning the wild card this year.

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Be a hit and have a ball.

This is it folks!  The softball, soccer and tennis team state tournaments are this week and the spring sport season is officially over.

Brookfield and Tosa have no softball teams at state once again (I never get to cover state softball). But Brookfield Central will be in the soccer tournament and the team tennis tournament.

The Lady Lancer kickers open at 5 p.m. against De Pere at Uihlein Soccer Park. Record-wise they have the worse record in the field, but don't tell that to Brookfield East and Homestead. The Lancers have been working their magic.

The Lancer boys will square off at 5:30 p.m. on Friday at the Nielsen Tennis Stadium against Homestead. Central has beat the Highlanders twice, but anything can happen because all the matches were close. The winner will face top-ranked Marquette (you can count on it). When asked the key to beating the Hilltoppers, Central's veteran coach Dave Steinbach replied "Beating Homestead first."

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Both Brookfield baseball teams should be fun to watch this year as they both are off to good starts. Central always seems to reload instead of rebuild and coach Tim Granger has the pitching to make the Spartans a contender this year also.

Over in Wauwatosa, the Red Raiders are better and it all starts with the talented Danny Sayles and catcher Tyler O'Brien. Both players are fun to watch. Coach Matt Dahlstrom will have a better team in his second season.

Coach Chad Mateske has plenty of Wauwatosa West arms to call on, but he will be looking for the ones with the most strikes in them. Mateske hopes to use the first part of the season to see what kind of talent he has and then hopefully get his team ready for the playoff run.

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The Lady Lancers finished second at state this year - anyone who complains should have their head examined. Kudos to Katelyn Malcore who came home with four medals. Bradley Tech was very talented team and Central would have had to have been perfect to beat them.

As impressive as it was for Collin Taylor taking home the only state title - winning the high jump at 6-10 - his efforts helped boost the Spartans to sixth place in state along with the second-place finish of the 1,600 relay team which only had one senior (Andrew Amato) on the team. Big Mitch Aprahaniam finished his high school sports career with a third in the shot.

Also congrats to Drew Lied, who finished third for the Spartans at the state individual tennis tournament.

Tosa East's Hannah Weinberg-Kinsey and Tosa West's Ashlee Ballinger finished fourth and sixth, respectively.

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I hope to see you out at a local baseball game this summer.

Like sunflower seeds in a dugout, here are some things to chew on.

Local Brookfield and Tosa high school teams

• Brookfield Central, by far the best of the local teams, is not going to win the rugged Greater Metro Conference. If pitching is the name of the game, then it will be interesting to see what the Lancers do in the postseason.  Mike Bogard, Ricky Leachy, Mike Mierow and Cale Ross are four decent pitchers and Lee Severson is a good closer. But the key to the Lancers' success will come at the plate. Coach Jeff Bigler will need more offense than Bogard, Severson and Pete Ostergaard can provide by themselves. Someone else has to step up or the fourth-seeded Lancers, who play fifth-seeded Pewaukee July 22, can call it a day.
• Losing has affected the three other teams I cover. Going into Tuesday, Brookfield East was 3-18, Wauwatosa East was 7-22 and Wauwatosa West was 3-19. They would need a postseason miracle to advance too far.
• The stress has affected Tosa West coach Chad Mateske, who was upset over the Lancers' Lee Severson playing all nine positions against the Trojans last week. Right or wrong? Check out my column in the WauwatosaNOW online and paper on Thursday.
• Defense, which I haven't see a lot of this summer, is important to Alex Dati and Zach Stewart of Brookfield East. Check out my story in the BrookfieldNOW online and Thursday's paper for the feature.

Brewers

• With the addition of CC Sabathia, the Brewers should suddenly make the summer a lot more fun. I was part of the 1982 Brewers front office and the excitement of a pennant race is simply amazing. Many highs when you win and many lows when you lose. But enjoy the moment.
• Friend of mine told me the other day that he used to count the days until Packer training camp, but now he doesn't because of the Brewers.
• Jayson Stark of ESPN had an interesting stat. Sabathia and Prince Fielder are the only two players over 270 on the same roster since the White Sox Bobby Jenks and Andrew Sisco (who?). That's based on listed weight, since some teams lie about their larger players. 

Bucks

• As a former PR guy, I felt sorry for the Milwaukee Bucks bringing Richard Jefferson into town for a meeting with the media the same day as the CC trade was announced. That sucks. Jefferson seemed as classy as CC.
• Check out my Mo Williams story in this week's WauwatosaNOW paper and online addition on Thursday. He is coaching a local AAU basketball team and loving it.

Packers

• He's retired, he's not retired, he's retired, he's not retired. I can't even get myself to say his name anymore. I know one thing, he has changed my entire opinion of him from this day forward. I'm happy I'm not blinded like some people are towards their "hero." What a joke he's turned into.
• Unlike a lot of people who ripped Ted Thompson when he was hired, working in a front office of a professional team, I know what goes on behind the scenes and I always felt just give the man time before judging him. He has done a wonderful job hiring a coach and a great job rebuilding a team that Mike Sherman ruined. Now the Thompson haters are trying to make him the bad guy in this whole "I'm retired-I'm not retired" thing. Sad.

Agree or disagree, always remember...

Be a hit and have a ball.

Here are some observations on the four local baseball teams to chew on.

There is no question that Wauwatosa West's talented catcher Zach Bertoni can hit the baseball. But with a young Trojan team looking for leadership on the field, Bertoni needs to take a bigger part.

The local high school baseball teams are starting to get an idea on what kind of season is on the horizon for them with June coming to a close and July just around the corner.

After a slow start - for them - the Brookfield Central Lancers are starting to come around. Central recently had an 11-game winning streak stopped and brought a 7-4 Greater Metro Conference record and a 14-7 overall mark into this week's action.

The Lancers are led by Mike Bogard (Shameless plug: see my feature on Bogie in Thursday's BrookfieldNOW), Lee Severson, Mike Mierow and newcomers junior Pete Ostergaard and freshman Ryan Hinz, the last two seeing their first varsity action this year. These fellows can hit, people.

But what sets Central apart is their pitching. Starters Bogard, Mierow, Cale Ross and Collin O'Gorman were joined Tuesday by Ricky Leach, who returns to the lineup after missing 20 games for breaking the athletic code rules. Leachy will also help the batting attack. And don't forget Severson, Central's cool-headed closer.

The Lancers are two games in the loss column behind Menomonee Falls and one behind Marquette and surprising Hamilton. They have their work cut out for them, but the talent is there.

Brookfield East is still looking for its first conference win, but coach Tim Granger has some talent to draw on. Mark Altenbach, Justin Wagner, Jake Janowski and Kyle Smith give him some mound talent, with consistency being the key word here. And nobody chases down a flyball like center fielder Alex Dati or works harder behind the plate than Zach Stewart. And the ball jumps off the bat of Demetri Tongas.

Wauwatosa East's team, under first-year coach Matt Dahlstrom, has seen tremendous progress last week, topping it off with an outstanding 2-1 win over Central, which snapped the Lancers' 11-game win streak on Monday. While key seniors like Matt Karger, Mike Gouvion and Mike Brown provide steady play and leadership and juniors Eric Woodard and Jake Pipping have been solid on the mound, perhaps the Red Raiders best players are sophomore catcher Tyler O'Brien and pitcher-1B Danny Sayles.

Dahlstrom believes in his team, but how quickly the Red Raiders believe in themselves will be the difference in an OK season and a surprise one.

Wauwatosa West coach Chad Mateske was asking for volunteers to pitch the other day after losing star Spencer Lameka with a pulled left hamstring while running out a double. With a healthy Lameka and Allan Rozanski, Mateske has a solid top two starters. Ben Falk, Chris Anger and little freshman junkballer Zach Podzaline have potential.

If senior catcher Zach Bertoni can provide more leadership behind the plate to go along with his big bat and Sean Akin continues his hitting, the Trojans could win their share of games, They just went through a five game stretch where they averaged eight runs a game.

Plenty of local baseball to watch as summer really begins (this is Wisconsin, remember). So grab your favorite outdoor chair, some sun tan lotion and your favorite (non-alcoholic) drink and go watch these guys play. It's worth your time.

And remember - always be a hit and have a ball.