HORACE LANGFORD JR. / PVT The Pahrump Valley High School volleyball team will play Las Vegas Faith Lutheran at 3 p.m. today at Boulder City, in the first round of the Southern Nevada Class 3-A regional tournament. Advertisement

BOULDER CITY -- Over the last two weeks of the regular season, the Pahrump Valley High School volleyball team discovered exciting success.

Coach Amy Hart's Trojans went 3-4 in a tough invitational tournament at San Diego, then knocked off Mesquite Virgin Valley and Boulder City in Southern Nevada Class 3-A League matches, before bowing in five games to homestanding Overton Moapa Valley.

What that run of success led to was Pahrump Valley -- once considered a long shot to make the playoffs after starting league play 0-5 -- qualified for the regionals.

That single-elimination tournament will be played today in the Boulder City High School gym, with the No. 4 seeded Lady Trojans taking on No. 1 Las Vegas Faith Lutheran at 3 p.m. At 5, it will be Overton Moapa Valley, the No. 2 seed, facing No. 3 Boulder City.

The winners in those two matches automatically qualify for the state tournament (Nov. 9-10 at Silverado High School in Las Vegas), but they will clash at 7 p.m., with a No. 1 seed at state the payoff.

Faith Lutheran swept the league series from Pahrump Valley and finished 8-0 in the league. Moapa Valley was 6-2, Boulder City 3-5 and the Trojans 2-6. Virgin Valley was 1-7.

Losing to Faith Lutheran, a state finalist in 2006, and Moapa Valley, which once had a 13-year state title streak, might have been expected, but splitting with Virgin Valley and Boulder City was not.

In fact, a five-game loss to Virgin Valley ended a 54-match league losing streak, dating back to 1998, for the Bulldogs.