FROM THE PAHRUMP VALLEY TIMES-STAR The 1983-84 Pahrump Valley High School girls' volleyball state tournament entourage included Julie Brown, Alex Pekarek, Jennifer Phillips, Cindi Bailey, Jeri Hanoum, Jackie Holmes, principal Rod Pekarek, athletics director Ron Eason, Angela Jenkins, Maria Santovito, coach Pete Peterson, Karen Freeman, Amber Weselowski, coach Joe Peterson, Misti Ward and Lisa Woodworth. The Lady Trojans were 23-2, including 5-1 in the state tournament, played at Chaparral High School in Las Vegas. Advertisement

The 1980-81 Pahrump Valley volleyball team, coached by Joe Peterson, won its eighth consecutive regional title in Class A.

On the team were Cherise Mayfield, Maggie Veloz, Teri Hanna, Jennifer Hanoum, Norma Pallan, Melodie Sturgeon, Cindy Kaucky, Herricka Stratford and Gloria Arenas.

"The teams during those years didn't have to work all that hard because of how Joe Peterson coached, but they were pretty well disciplined," said Maggie Villa, nee Veloz, a former coach who works in the PVHS administration department. "Coach Peterson knew one thing he wanted us to be, that was to be aggressive."

The 1980-81 team was 17-2, including an unbeaten run of 14 matches. At the regionals, the PV girls defeated Virgin Valley 15-2, 15-4 and Tonopah 15-5, 15-6.

The state tournament was played in Reno and again, the Trojans had little trouble, beating Coleville, Calif., 15-7, 15-0 and Zephyr Cove Whittell 15-5, 15-12 to win the championship. Mayfield made a key play late in the second game to protect the PVHS lead.

The 1981-82 volleyball season was played in the winter for the final time, as PVHS debuted in the Southern Class 2-A League. The Trojans did not qualify for the state tournament, finishing 11-5 in all matches.

With volleyball moving to the fall in 1982, Pahrump Valley had an upbeat response to the pressures of 2-A competition in that sport. The Lady Trojans won 19 of 21 matches and claimed the school's first state 2-A championship. Over a three-year span, Peterson was 53-9 and had two state titles as coach.

Alex Pekarek, Lisa Woodworth, Lourdes Gardea, Karen Freeman, Jeri Hanoum, Julie Brown, Leslie Sylva, Lorraine Alexander, Irma Gardea and Cindy Bailey were on the squad.

The team's most important regular-season win came in mid-October, when the Trojans upset Moapa Valley, getting big points in both matches from Alexander, Brown and Gardea.

In key matches leading up to the state tournament played at incline Village, PV's girls defeated Virgin Valley 15-7, 13-15, 15-7 and Tonopah 15-9, 15-4 to move their record to 16-2.

"The main reason for the late-season surge has been the fact that everyone is playing well enough to take up the slack if someone is having an off-night," said Peterson.

At the state tournament, the Trojans drew a first-round bye, then defeated Mineral County Hawthorne 15-4, 15-9, as Alexander -- who later would be named the South's most valuable player -- had 12 kills and Sylva had 13 service points.

In the semifinals, PVHS beat Elko, a school with more than 1,000 students, 15-6, 15-17, 15-7. Because it was a double-elimination tournament, Elko got past Winnemucca Lowry to move into the finals, where the Indians lost 15-11, 15-7 to the Trojans.

The 1983-84 Lady Trojans, seeking a repeat, won 17 of their first 18 matches, including an 8-0 record in the 2-A league. They thrived behind the on-floor leadership of Julie Brown, Misti Ward and Jeri Hanoum, taking an 18-1 record into the state tournament, played in November 1983 at Chaparral High School in Las Vegas.

A 'gold' era in Pahrump Valley girls sports would end with a spectacular performance in the state tournament.

Whittell knocked the Trojans into the losers' bracket with a 13-15, 15-9, 15-6 victory in the tournament opener. Which meant the PV girls had to win their next three starts just to get to the finals.

They did, beating big and bad Elko 3-15, 15-10, 15-12 ... long-time nemesis Boulder City 15-10, 15-12 ... and persistent Hawthorne in a marathon battle, 16-18, 15-4, 16-14.

Pahrump Valley was in the finals, but coach Peterson's team had to defeat Whittell twice. In what could have been an elimination match for the Trojans, they survived 15-10, 4-15, 15-13 to force a win-it-all showdown.

Pahrump Valley prevailed in rather routine fashion, beating Whitttell 15-9, 15-8. Brown finished the tournament with 43 spikes; she had had 123 in the previous 19 matches.

"This team displayed more courage than any of the other six state championship teams that I have been associated with at PVHS," said Peterson. "After we got our confidence back beating Elko, we kind of made a game of seeing how long we could stay on the court and in the tournament."

As it turned out, the PV girls were on the court for eight out of nine hours to complete their chase to the championship. The Lady Trojans won 23 of 25 matches, but that 5-1 run -- against major odds -- in the state tournament was one of the great feats in Nevada prep athletics.