DON McDERMOTT / PVT Pahrump Valley High School athletics director and football coach Brian Hug watches the players go through an off-season weightlifting program. Talking to the coach is Mike Colucci, one of the key returning players for the Trojans. DON McDERMOTT / PVT Student-athletes at Pahrump Valley High School helped with the project to remove old sod from the football stadium field Tuesday, as well as assist in preparing it for replacement sod. Advertisement

Richard Barker will be the girls volleyball coach this fall at Pahrump Valley High School, while Andy Anderson will be the cross country coach, according to PVHS principal Kent Roberts.

"The boys' soccer coaching job is still open, but we should have that vacancy filled within the next couple days," said Roberts.

Barker replaces Jill Harris, whose teams averaged 21 wins a season over five years; her 2002 team was runnerup to Southern Nevada Class 3-A League rival Overton Moapa Valley in the state tournament. Three other Lady Trojans teams qualified for the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association-sanctioned tournaments during her tenure, including the 2005 squad that finished 15-16 in all matches.

Anderson takes over for Ed Dabrowski, who coached several quality runners in four years, but never had the luxury of directing full-roster teams. Erin Szelagowski and Ricky Johnson were state-level competitors throughout their PVHS careers, in both cross country and track.

C.J. Johnson, because of business commitments, had to give up his role as the boys' soccer coach. The 2005 Trojans lost 2-0 to Truckee, Calif., in the Class 3-A state championship game, played last November at MacKay Stadium on the University of Nevada campus in Reno.

Brian Hug, the athletics director and football coach at Pahrump Valley High School, is in town for a couple days; Thursday, he flies to Bethlehem, Pa., where he will coach the West All-Stars in the first Great Lakes Indoor Football League all-star game. Hug coached the Port Huron, Mich., Pirates to a 10-0 regular-season record, before they went 2-0 in the playoffs to win Great Lakes Bowl I.

"Tomorrow (Tuesday) morning, we are going to start work on re-sodding the middle of the football field," said Hug. "And we will continue to work on our practice field; a company (Mr. Clean) came in and and cleaned out an area beyond the softball field so we can begin workouts there."

Tuesday morning, more than 20 high school football players were on site, helping with the removal of the old sod and preparing the surface for the new. The workers caught a break; 10-to-15-mile per hour breezes mitigated the discomfort of rising temperatures.

Hug expects upwards to 100 boys to report Aug. 10, for the first day of preseason workouts. The first game is Sept. 1, with the Trojans traveling to Las Vegas to battle Class 4-A Chaparral.

"We will combine the varsity and JV teams for drills; the freshmen will work separately," said Hug, indicating that they, and the boys who compete at Rosemary Clarke Middle School, will all use the same terminology. Leo Verzilli is back for his eighth season with the Sharks.