After a spring's worth of blood, sweat and tears by local athletic teams, it all comes down to the final days of the 2008-09 preps sports season this weekend.
As the baseball and softball semifinals and the girls soccer finals get ready to take place, a couple of things jump out at Kosmo.
One, why isn't there an area softball team in Battle Creek? Kosmo is not the biggest softball historian, but he wonders if there's EVER been a year when there hasn't been at least one Oakland County team in the semifinals. It's a strange sight, but after Lakeland and Troy lost in the quarterfinals, that's unfortunately the situation.
Second, it's too bad there aren't any public schools left in any of the three sports. Orchard Lake St. Mary's in baseball and Birmingham Marian and Madison Heights Bishop Foley in soccer are the only county teams still playing this weekend.
And no, this doesn't mean there should be separate tournaments for private schools. It's all cyclical.
Some years, the finals are dominated by public schools teams from the area. Back in 2007, Lake Orion and Farmington met in the Division 1 state baseball final, while Novi and Rochester played for the Division 1 girls soccer title.
It's just surprising no public schools are still alive this weekend in any of these sports.

Well, it's officially the last week of the 2008-09 preps sports season with the quarterfinals, semifinal and finals for baseball and softball teams and the semifinals and finals for girls soccer teams taking place this week.
As far as the baseball teams go, Kosmo doesn't like what they have to go through this week.
For some reason, there's a whole week off between district and regional rounds of the state tournament, which is too much time.
Yet, teams that win two games in regionals to advance to the quarterfinals have to turn around and play quarterfinal games on Tuesday.
That's barely any time to rest for starting pitchers, which means the quality of baseball has to suffer.
Teams are forced to use multiple pitchers to get through the quarterfinals.
Wouldn't be better if teams had ample rest so they could throw their best pitchers on Tuesday, then have them available again for Friday's semifinals and Saturday's final should they get that far?
In terms of a solution, Kosmo has an idea. Play the regional games on Thursday. And don't give me this baloney about it being a school day. Other sports teams such as golf and tennis teams get to miss some days of school during the year, so having the non-seniors miss a day of school isn't the end of the world. Play the games on Thursday, and that way you have five days off to gear up for the quarterfinals and not risking pitchers throwing on two days rest twice in a week. If you don't like the Thursday idea, play the regional semifinals on Friday and the finals on Saturday.

This weekend, it'll be heartwarming for Kosmo to see what have recently been two dormant athletic programs compete in the biggest stage.
First of all, the Waterford Our Lady of the Lakes golf program will compete in the Division 4 state tournament at Michigan State University's Forest Akers East course. WOLL won its first regional title since 1986 last week, shooting its lowest score in team history in the process.
The Lakers' best player, James Bastian, hopes to finish in time so he can drive back and play for the baseball team as well if it gets by its regional semifinal against Portland St. Patrick.
The other rags-to-riches story is Orchard Lake St. Mary's lacrosse, which has been horrible the last few years. However, behind coach Greg Normand, the Eaglets have risen fast and are now on the cusp of a Division 2 state championship.
St. Mary's will meet East Grand Rapids at 5 p.m. at Troy Athens High School.

On Monday, Kosmo was glancing at the girls soccer regional pairings and thought for sure he had stumbled on a misprint. Unfortunately, it wasn't such a thing.
The Michigan High School Athletic Association has put Novi in a regional all the way in a regional at East Kentwood, which is near Grand Rapids.
Two-hour plus drives aren't a big deal if they are for state championship games.
But regional games? On a school night?
Kosmo can't understand it, and he's sure Novi can't either.
This gives new definition to gassing up the busses. During boys regionals in past years, the MHSAA has moved semifinal games when Traverse City teams make it so those teams don't have to drive as far.
For example, Traverse City West and Clarkston in the Fall of 2007 had a regional semifinal game moved from the regional's host site, Grand Blanc, to Midland so West wouldn't have to drive as far.
Why isn't the same thing being done for Novi or Okemos? Why can't the game be played in Howell or something?
Here's hoping Novi uses this as motivation to go out west and kick the behinds of Okemos today's regional semfinals and in all likelihood, No. 1 Portage Central in the regional final.