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Holmen's Junior Legion baseball team will begin the postseason Thursday when they open regional play at 5 p.m. at Onalaska.

Also a part of the regional are opening round foes Prairie du Chien and Westby, who play at noon Thursday at Onalaska, and Viroqua and the La Crosse A's, who play at 2:30 p.m. at Onalaska. The winner of the regional advances to state July 24-28 at Prairie du Chien.

As the state host, Prairie automatically receives a bid to state. If PDC wins the regional, the second-place team advances to state.

Holmen enters the regional off five scheduled games between July 9 and 11, but with no games between July 1 and 8 after Monday's scheduled doubleheader at the A's was rained out. A make-up date was not available as of the Courier deadline, though Legion head coach Matt Jessessky said a makeup was doubtful.

Jessessky thinks his club's pitching gives it a chance to advance to Junior Legion state for the first time since 2004. Holmen entered the week 8-3 in non-tournament games, but 0-7 in tournament games. The Legion beat Onalaska 11-8 on the road June 14, while hosting Onalaska in a doubleheader Thursday (after the Courier deadline).

“Onalaska is a good team and the opener should be a good game,” Jessessky said. “They've got solid pitching, but we're deep, too. We've discovered three guys (Jacob Matl, Johnathan Powell and Zach Glaunert) beyond the five we thought we had (Ben Cejka, Ross Kerska, Joe Burge, Bennett Johnson and Ethan Bock) at the beginning of the season.”

Holmen is 0-3 against the A's, while also falling to Prairie du Chien at the Sparta tournament. Jessessky said despite an 0-3 record in the event, the team's offense responded to playing varsity teams at the June 28 Bangor tournament. That included Jay Kramer, who didn't play early at Bangor because of a medical issue, but hit a grand slam in the June 30 doubleheader sweep of Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau.

“We played well at Bangor,” Jessessky said. “Our hitting woke up. Taylor Hauser especially has been hitting well of late.”

Along with offensive depth and improved hitting, Jessessky said the club's depth has helped defensively, as well.

“We've been able to do a lot of platooning, and playing a lot of three- and four-inning guys,” Jessessky said. “I'm comfortable with at least one guy at every spot on the field.”

The Legion completes its regular season with a 4 p.m. home game with Bi-State (5-8), Luther's Legion program, Friday.

Bi-State has gotten strong pitching performances of late from Caleb Schultz and Travis Hamilton, along with two home runs from Cody Krueger in a doubleheader sweep at Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau July 3.