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Holmen's American Legion baseball team is hosting the Class AA regional, beginning Thursday.

Holmen (9-14) opens in the six-team, double-elimination event Thursday at 6 p.m. against Richland Center. Other opening-round games include Sauk Prairie and Baraboo at 1 p.m., and Onalaska (20-3) and Reedsburg at 3:30 p.m. Reedsburg finished third behind the Legion and Onalaska at last year's regional, though Holmen appears to have fallen off the most of the three from a year ago.

“I think we're a better team than our record,” Legion head coach Duane Vike said. “We have to go in expecting to win. A winning mindset is the biggest thing for us right now.”

Holmen split its two games at its home tournament Saturday, including a 4-0 shutout of 2007 Class A state tournament team Prescott in the consolation game. Levi Adank tossed a complete-game shutout, striking out 11. The Legion scored three runs in the first, with Jarrod Bock adding a solo home run.

Holmen dropped to the consolation game after a 13-6 loss to Black River Falls. The Legion scored twice in the bottom of the first to get back within 3-2, but Black River added two more runs in the third, and broke the game open with six runs in the fourth.

Josh Thundercloud went seven innings for the victory, striking out seven, allowing four walks and eight hits. Five of the six runs were earned.

“Josh mixed in lots of off-speed pitches to keep Holmen off balance,” BRF head coach Steve Mickelson said.

Vike said, “Levi was pretty dominant against Prescott. We played one of our poorest defensive games of the year against Black River Falls.”

The Legion followed by dropping 7-1 and 11-10 decisions in a doubleheader at Winona Monday. Holmen led 8-5 through 5 1/2 innings in game two.

Jay Merfeld and Spencer Schaller notched three hits each. Adank and Mitch Peterson added two hits each.

Peterson allowed two runs over the first three innings, before giving way to Bock. Bock pitched a scoreless fifth before giving way to Adank.

“Shane pitched fairly well,” Vike said. “Jarrod's stuff is getting better. He's starting to get his fastball and his breaking ball in the zone.”

Casey Schlagel took the loss in game one despite not allowing walk over the first five innings, before giving way to Corey Jessessky. Ross Jenks had Holmen's lone extra-base hit, a double.

“We hit well last night,” Vike said Tuesday. “But we've got to start getting more hits at the right times.

“We're not doing a good enough job of hitting with guys in scoring position right now. We need to be more aggressive in those situations.”

The Legion scored plenty of runs, but not because of its hitting, in scoring five runs in the bottom of the seventh of an 8-7 win over Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau July 9. Jordan Vaaler had the lone hit in the rally, but it came with none out and runners at second and third in a 7-7 game, driving in Merfeld with the winning run. Peterson, Ben Squier and Merfeld walked, while Jenks and Jarod Dayton reached on errors, to set the stage for Vaaler.

Courier publisher Chris Hardie contributed to this article.