Hogan scored from third after Wirzba through a wild pitch in the fifth inning

The American Legion baseball Western A District Tournament starts today in Kalispell at Griffin Field.

It is an eight-team, double-elimination tournament that sends the top two teams to the Class A State Tournament in Billings from July 27-30.

The 11-team Western District eliminated three teams after regular-season play - two from the North Sub-Division and one from the South Sub-Division. Libby and Sanders County were eliminated from the North and Salmon, Idaho, was eliminated from the South.

The Mission Valley Mariners, Kalispell Lakers, Kootenai Valley Rangers and Glacier Twins will represent the North Sub-Division as Nos. 1 through 4 seeds, respectively. The Bitterroot Buccaneers (Bucs), Bitterroot Red Sox, Missoula Mavs and Deer Lodge Wranglers represent the South Sub-Division as Nos. 1 through 4 seeds, respectively.

The No. 1 seeds from each division play the No. 4 seeds from the opposite division. The No. 2 seeds play the No. 3 seeds from the opposite division.

Play begins at 9 a.m. with Kootenai Valley playing the Bitterroot Red Sox.

"The three toughest teams are the Bucs, Kootenai Valley, Mission Valley and us," said Kalispell first-year coach Damian Campbell. "That's my guess."

Mission Valley coach Jami Hanson, Kootenai coach Jim Henri, Glacier coach Scott Murray and Missoula coach Mike Nurse did not return phone calls Wednesday.

"This is going to be a real interesting tournament because we have only played three nine-inning games this season and all of the tournament games are nine innings," said Campbell, who played for Julio Delgado and the Glacier Twins AA team in the early 1990s. "It's going to put pressure on everybody's pitching staff come Saturday."

In Class A baseball, usually the non-feeder programs have the advantage because the good 17-, 18-, and 19-year-olds are playing for the Class AA programs. So Kalispell, Glacier and Missoula don't have a lot of Legion experience.

"We beat the Bucs pretty bad in the beginning of the season," Campbell said. "But they've got some guys that have come back from college. It's going to be really tough to win this tournament."

The Lakers, which finished the season with a 21-8 conference record and 37-17 overall record, will play the opening-day nightcap against Missoula (12-14, 29-32).

"The last time we played them we swept them in Missoula and I got tossed," Campbell said. "We got homered and still swept them. Their coach and I didn't have very good words to say to each other. So they are going to be out to get us big time … And that's just our first game."

The Lakers are led by Jacob Scott, Will Briles, Pat Hergasheimer and Derek Keller on offense. Catcher Tony Lawerence has Greg Neils and Brian Sneck as his top two pitchers. The Lakers do have an 18-year-old on the squad. His name is Chase Decker. He was his high school valectorian and is going to college at Dartmouth. He is planning to play baseball there.

Information on other teams was not available.