It's that time again.

Today marks the opening of the Northern 4A Region baseball tournament and two local teams made the field of eight.

Reed and Spanish Springs earned the right to represent the High Desert League by taking the final two spots after Galena stormed past both squads with a late-season run to the No. 2 seed.

As the third and fourth seeds respectively, the Raiders and Cougars will be on opposite sides of the bracket and won't face each other unless they both upset their way to the championship game.

Here is a look at their first-round matchups.

Reed Raiders

Reed is very familiar with its first-round foe. Douglas, the No. 2 seed from the Sierra League, will host the Raiders for the second straight year.

The past two seasons the Raiders have faced the Tigers as much as they would any league rival. Reed took a pair of one-run non-league games last spring only to fall twice in the regional playoffs to the eventual region runner-up.

For the second straight year, the Raiders opened their season with a win over the Tigers in the Mike Bearman Memorial Tournament, but Douglas came back and earned a regular-season split by winning a 10-9 decision in Minden three weeks ago.

"Douglas is very fundamentally sound. They don't make a lot of mistakes. They take care of the baseball," Reed baseball coach Jon Foss said. "They are very tenacious at the plate. They won't go down looking. They are very well coached."

Foss expects Douglas (21-9, 16-5 Sierra League) to throw Tyler Hoelzen today, who shut down Reno in a 6-1 complete-game effort last week. He had eight strikeouts to open that Sierra League series.

"He's a lefty and he's around the zone consistently. He has a good little breaking ball," Foss said. "He's been good for them all year. He's been their go-to guy down the stretch. When they need a big win, that's who has gotten it for them."

Whoever pitches for Douglas today will have their hands full. Reed has four of the top six hitters in High Desert League play and two more in the top 20.

CJ Maldonado led the HDL in hitting with a .544 batting average. He was second with five home runs.

Casey Yocom (.527), John Pelino (.484) and Duran DiQuarto (.455) are all in the top six.

Derric Williford led the league with six home runs, but his arm is what Foss is counting on.

Williford will get the start on the mound versus the Tigers after going 4-2 with a 5.49 ERA in HDL action. The senior tossed a no-hitter in his final start of the season and has pitched well down the stretch.

"He's been incredible for us the last month and a half. He's been very consistent on the mound for us the last few outings," Reed's fifth-year coach said.

With Williford on the mound, it also keeps the infield defense in tact. Foss contemplated starting Yocom on the hill, but decided to leave his starting shortstop in the middle of the infield, so he wouldn't have to rotate other players around the infield.

While Reed (17-15, 11-7 HDL) won't be entering the playoffs with much momentum after losing two of three games to Fallon last week, Foss hopes the seniors will forget that and focus on ending their careers on a high note.

"We're senior dominated and you hope the seniors will put that stuff behind them," he said. "It's a so-called new season. Everyone starts fresh. I hope the guys just focus on the job in hand and don't worry about all these other intangibles."

Spanish Springs Cougars

As the fourth seed, that means Spanish Springs will have to meet the Sierra League champions.

One year after missing out on the playoffs, Reno is back in a familiar position after winning a three-game series against Douglas last week to secure the top spot.

The Huskies (24-6, 18-3 Sierra League) won all seven of their league series but did drop single games with Damonte Ranch, Carson and Douglas - all of which are playoff bound. Reno also lost a non-league contest with Reed, 8-4, in late April.

But SSHS coach Mike Bosco knows there has not been a clear-cut favorite to win it all, and he feels his team has as great a chance as any if he gets solid pitching and defense with some timely hitting.

"I do think it's wide open, but Reno is obviously a good team," Bosco said. "They're coming off a big weekend with Douglas, so we're hoping we might catch them overlooking us."

The Cougars know about playoff droughts also. Spanish Springs has not made the postseason since it won the regional crown in 2005.

The Purple and Teal has had a decent 2008 campaign though. The Cougars won their league series against Elko, Galena, McQueen and Fallon.

However, their final series did not go well as the HDL champion Manogue Miners swept them.

Bosco said he felt like his team was in all three games and the Miners will likely go to state, so the kids shouldn't be too discouraged by the sweep.

Spanish Springs (14-11, 10-8 HDL) has not played Reno yet this year, so Bosco doesn't know a lot about the Huskies. He spent quite some time recently looking at the tendencies he has on the Huskies in order to figure out what the best pitching match-up might be.

"What I do know is they're not a big power hitting team. I think they have nine home runs as a team. They're not a threat to hit home runs up and down the lineup," Bosco said. "They've got a big ballpark, and we're hoping we can find a guy who can keep him off balance. Then we might have a chance. That's what we can hope for."

In contrast, Spanish Springs left fielder Riley Tauchen led the Cougars with six homers. He also hit at around a .440 clip.

A .350-hitting team, Reno is out-hitting Spanish Springs on the year by about 30 points, so Bosco knows how important pitching will be today.

He thinks Reno will throw Drew Simpson (6-0) since ace Keegan Peterson hurt his hand, but they're both similar pitchers. The Huskies don't have a big fireballer like Manogue's Joe Wieland and that bodes well for a team like Spanish Springs, which likes to put the ball in play and play small ball.

The other first-round matchups are Carson at Galena and Damonte Ranch at Manogue. All games are at 3:30 p.m. today and the following rounds will be held at Damonte and Manogue. The championship game is at 1 p.m. Saturday at Manogue. Both regional finalists earn a berth to state.