HORACE LANGFORD JR. / PVT Girls soccer in Clark County Class 4-A is played during the winter season. What happens to the Pahrump Valley girls' team? Emily Poertner, 3, and Stephanie Ledford are on the 2007 Lady Trojans' fall squad that was 5-0-1 in games played through Thursday. Advertisement

Pahrump Valley's petition to remain in Class 3-A was denied by the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association, so Trojan athletics teams will play in the Class 4-A Sunset Region, starting in fall 2008.

The NIAA hierarchy is going to have to explain, with unmitigated logicm that decision, because two of its three major criteria were ignored in making that decision.

First, Pahrump Valley, for several years, even through the next realignment in 2012 will have a difficult time in achieving competitive balance (Criteria No. 1).

Second, enrollment at PVHS will be at 1,500 next year, give or take a hundred students (Criteria No. 2). The smallest Sunset Region Southwest Division school is Las Vegas Bishop Gorman, with around 1,000 students. But Gorman is a private parochial school and attracts students from all over the world, literally.

The smallest public school in the division is Bonanza, with 2,300 students. Clark has 2,700; Durango, 2,680; Sierra Vista 3,200; Spring Valley, 2,500, and Western, 2,400. Some schools could have as many as 1,000 freshmen enrolled

Criteria No. 3 is geographical location -- and Pahrump Valley is, to put it in terms anyone can understand, is caught between a rock (the Spring Mountains) and a hard place (the Great American Desert).

And the NIAA is going to have to explain why, after it decided on which schools went where, Nevada's Class 3-A leagues were left with just 11 schools. Count 'em ... Boulder City, Las Vegas Faith Lutheran, Overton Moapa Valley and Mesquite Virgin Valley in the South ... Dayton, Fernley, Winnemucca Lowry, Sparks, Spring Creek, Truckee (Calif.), and Yerington in the North. That's 1,2,3, 4 in the South .... 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 in the North.

Tell all of us in Pahrump why the NIAA would agree to an alignment which relegates Class 3-A to well ... an afterthought. Class 3-A is now being treated like the little children who can't eat in the big dining room with the adults.

Why does Class 4-A in the South need Pahrump Valley High School anyway? Explain that reasoning, oh great NIAA leaders.

The numbers say Pahrump Valley exceeds the minimum enrollment for Class 4-A; those numbers also say, in BIG, BAD NUMERALS, that Pahrump Valley High School will have, in enrollment, at least 800 boys and girls less than Bonanza.

800 students would comprise a good-sized high school under normal circumstances, but talk about unfair advantage the bigger school would have in putting together a quality, competitive athletics program.

The Las Vegas-Clark County athletics cartel has 30 schools. More, in this case, does not mean better.

It just means whoever has to direct an athletics program at Pahrump Valley High School will have to be a magician to put together quality teams for at least the next five years, when the Pahrump Valley population might include 2,000 high-school age students. What we're hoping for is a major influx of Married, with Children types. At the moment, families with children are not moving into the Pahrump Valley in such great numbers.

Major housing projects have publicized by developers in this part of Nye County. Which would be terrific, if the current home sales market weren't experiencing some problems and foreclosures weren't complicating the scene, not just in Nevada, but across the country.

The 2008-2012 classifications were determined by student enrollment: 169 and under in Class A; 170 to 460 in 2-A; 461 to 1,200 in 3-A, and 1,201 and higher in 4-A.

Replacing PVHS in Southern 3-A would have been Bishop Gorman, which successfully appealed to remain 4-A. Up North, Reno Bishop Manogue would be a 3-A school, but its appeal, too, was approved; the Miners will remain in Class 4-A.

Consider this as well.

In the Sunset Region Northwest Division are Arbor View (2,200), Centennial (2,900), Cheyenne (2,500), Cimarron-Memorial (3,000), Legacy (1,800), Mojave (2,300), and Palo Verde (3,400).

Sunrise Northeast teams are Canyon Springs (2,600), Chaparral (2.700), Desert Pines (3,100), Eldorado (3,200), Las Vegas (3,200), Rancho (3,300) and Valley (3,000). Sunrise Southeast teams are Henderson Basic (2,400), Coronado (2,800), Foothill (2,400), Green Valley (2,800) and Liberty (1,800), along with Las Vegas Del Sol (2,200), Silverado (2,500) and Vo-Tech (1,800).

So, we will ask the question again. With those well-populated high schools in Las Vegas and Henderson, why did Pahrump Valley have to move into Class 4-A?

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, including the belief that what is good for Sin City is good for the rest of Nevada -- Pahrump Valley included. Bah, humbug, to quote Scrooge. Is he related to the NIAA board of control? We wonder.