EDITOR'S NOTE: Joe Santoro, a former Reno Gazette-Journal sports writer now working with NevPrep.Com, attended the realignment announcement meeting Wednesday in Reno.

Cody Neville now fears for the safety of his Yerington Lions football players.

"Of course, that is the biggest issue," the Lions varsity football coach said Wednesday after the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association Board of Control voted to deny Yerington's request to move from Class 3-A to 2-A. "But safety and competitive balance were put on the back burner."

The NIAA Board of Control, which votes on realignment every four years, also denied three other schools to move down a class.

Beginning with the 2008-09 school year, Laughlin will compete in Class 2-A, Pahrump Valley will compete in Class 4-A and Las Vegas Vo-Tech will be in the 4-A.

Five schools, however, were allowed to move up a class. Reno Bishop Manogue and Las Vegas Bishop Gorman will remain in Class 4-A while Las Vegas Calvary Chapel, Independence and Las Vegas Mountain View Christian were allowed to compete in Class 2-A.

"The one thing we did, we were very consistent in how we did this," NIAA Board of Control President Ray Mathis said. "And that's what a board needs to do. We realize we have a problem (with the enrollment guidelines for each class).

"We need to go back to the drawing board and find ways to make this (realignment) a better process," said Mathis. "But at least we were consistent and that's a good thing."

The NIAA board voted last spring to align all of the state's schools according to enrollment figures. Those enrollment guidelines -- 169-under for 1-A, 170-460 for 2-A, 461-1,200 for 3-A and 1,201-above for 4-A -- were established when the state went to four classes in 1996.

Only the nine schools on the agenda Wednesday at Reno's Grand Sierra Resort filed a petition to move up or down class.

Not all of the board members were in favor of denying schools the opportunity to compete in a smaller classification despite having enrollment figures for a larger class.

"We're just playing the old game," said board member Nat Lommori, the Lyon County School District superintendent. "We're just going by the numbers and the numbers haven't changed for almost 15 years."

"The (enrollment) numbers have to be changed," board vice president Keith Roman said. "The state has doubled in size. If we keep going like this, our problems are going to get worse and worse.

"To allow this to fester for another four years (until the next realignment vote), I have a real problem with that," said Roman. "Something needs to be addressed now. We need to tweak this. Maybe the 3-A needs to be 1,800 students in the South and 1,500 in the North. I don't know."

Yerington currently competes in Class 3-A in all sports but football, which is in the 2-A. Neville, the Lions head football coach for seven years, reminded the board that the Lions went 0-16 combined in 2001 and 2002, the last two years they were in Class 3-A.

Yerington, though, went 23-15 as an independent and as a member of the 2-A from 2003-06.

"We proved we were competitively balanced in the 2-A," Neville said. "In 3-A, it was a nightmare for us. I remember one game when we played Reno Bishop Manogue, I had to take three kids to the hospital with severe injuries.

"As a human being, I could not put my football team on the field at that (3-A) levelm" said Neville. "So we were forced to go independent (in 2003) for the safety of my kids."

Neville pointed out to the NIAA board that the Lions, at 472 students this year, will be "competing against a school that is, on average, 122 percent larger than us every single weekend."

Lommori agreed that Yerington is better suited for 2-A. "The 3-A has grown past Yerington," Lommori said.

"Yerington is at the squeaky bottom of (the Class 3-A) number," Roman said. "That number of 460 is correct for that league. Most of the schools in 3-A now approach 900, 1000 students. That number (460) needs to be increased."

The NIAA board, though, took into account that a survey of Class 3-A and Class 2-A coaches revealed that both classes wanted Yerington in 3-A.

"We are scared to death about our league," Class 3-A liaison Charlie Walsh said of the six-team Northern 3-A. "Some consideration has to be given to the leagues. Sooner or later we need to look at the 3-A league in order to save it."

"Yerington has been a great family member in our league," said Walsh. "We need them in our league."

The entire Class 3-A will consist of 11 teams starting in September 2008 -- seven in the north and four in the south, including Boulder City, Mesquite Virgin Valley, Overton Moapa Valley and Las Vegas Faith Lutheran.

Neville and Lommori, though, said that if the health of the Northern 3-A was a concern, then schools like Hug, South Tahoe, Elko, Churchill County Fallon and Reno Wooster should have been voted into the league last spring.

The NIAA board, though, avoided the issue by aligning all schools based on their enrollments. Those five 4-A schools all have enrollments over the class minimum.

"We missed the boat when we allowed South Tahoe, Elko and Fallon to stay in the 4-A," Lommori said. "Those schools would have made for a great league in 3-A, the best league in the state."

Yerington does have the option of competing as an independent in any of its sports. As an independent, they can schedule any school they wish but they cannot compete for a state championship.

"That will be discussed," Neville said. "But why can't kids in Yerington have the same dreams as kids everywhere else? It's the dream of every kid to be able to play at the high school level and be able to compete for a championship.

"If we're independent, our kids also can't be voted to the All-League or All-State teams," said Neville. "Our kids deserve that opportunity like everybody else."

Laughlin, a former 2-A school, has been allowed to compete in 1-A in recent years despite having a 2-A enrollment. Laughlin has qualified for the 1-A football playoffs in two of the last three years.

"The thing we have to take into consideration," Mathis said. "Is when a school does go down and has success, the other schools will question that and say, 'Well, they really shouldn't be in our league anyway.' That's something we have to consider."

Elmer Porter, the Class 1-A liaison, revealed that a survey of 28 1A schools revealed that 17 voted to move Laughlin back to the 2-A. Bill Darrow, the Class 2-A liaison, said the 2A schools wanted Laughlin in their class.

"They moved down in order to rebuild their programs and they've done that," Lommori said. "We met our (the board's) side of the bargain to allow them to move down. We met our obligation. And they built their programs back up. Their numbers are there. They make a great fit for the 2A."

Most of the board members, as well as NIAA executive director Eddie Bonine, agreed that the enrollment figures for the state's four classes, needs to be looked at.

"We need to do something different," Bonine said.

"The ball is in Mr. Bonine's court to make a better recommendation," Mathis said.

"Basically every state does it (realignment) based on numbers. When you start to do it any other way, it's not consistent. It's important to be consistent."

"If you don't do (realignment) by numbers, you'll never be able to deal with the issue subjectively," said Bill Garis, Clark County Director of Athletics. "I caution the board not to overreact as if we made a bad decision. We made the best decisions we could based on the numbers."

In other action, the board voted to retain the present four-team state tournament format for team sports.