It’s spring again.

On any given spring Saturday there’s a chance that all 57 varsity teams (between the seven high schools and two colleges) in our coverage area will be competing.

Our daily task, with finite space and limited resources, is to give you what my boss David Marran calls “a snapshot of the day” in sports.

Most staffing decisions are made on a weekly basis. Most placement decisions (where in the section) are made on a daily basis. One of the great things about a daily newspaper is the ability to adjust when news breaks. The same goes for sports.

However, there are policies that guide those day-to-day decisions.

Our policy is we don’t send staffers to cover middle school or junior varsity athletics. I remember one exception (a basketball game at the Bradley Center) to this rule in my 10 years at the News.

But every year we get a few calls about the middle school wrestling tournament that caps the season. For the athletes and their friends and relatives, this might have been the biggest event in the world that day.

As a parent of a two-sport middle school athlete, I’m not sure how one argues that wrestling is more worthy of coverage than other sports like football, volleyball, softball or boys and girls basketball.

But that’s not to say we wouldn’t find a place for the results if they were submitted to us.

While we don’t devote staffers to middle school sports, we do provide multiple outlets for middle school athletes to be recognized. The News publishes submitted team and individual photos in Sportlight and devotes a full Web site (ksn.kenoshanews.com) to participatory sports.

* For I-94 openers: You can’t tell a ton from the first game of MLB season, but the Milwaukee Brewers opener in San Francisco gave a little window into the season.

The Crew is going to have to outslug teams (which they are fully capable of) in order to make a return trip to the playoffs. Both Jeff Suppan and Dave Bush got roughed up by a Giants offense that is middle of the N.L. pack at best.

The Cubs’ offense has been up and down, but the first two starting pitchers — Carlos Zambrano (one run in six-plus innings) and Ryan Dempster (two runs in six innings) were solid and at times spectacular. Zambrano retired 10 straight at one point and Dempster didn’t allow a hit until two outs in the fourth.

It’s a long season, but both teams and the I-94 corridor ramp the pomp back up for another Opening Day on Friday when the host Brewers pop the top on Miller Park vs. the Cubs (3:05 p.m. on FSNW).

* Book it (11-7): As usual, Vegas sports books know what they’re talking about. Prior to the Final Four, North Carolina was an 11-10 favorite to win the national title. I booked against the odds and lost.

Once again I’m taking Tiger Woods to win his fifth Masters title. Doubling up: Teenager Rory McIlroy will finish in the Top 10.

Mike Larsen is a sportswriter for the News. E-mail him at