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RENO -- In the 2008-2009 Nevada Class 3-A basketball season, Pahrump Valley's girls won't be around to torment the opposition. In the first eight years of the 21st century, the Trojans won two state championships, lost in the finals once and three times fell in the state semifinals -- as well as being a dominant regular-season and regional team almost every season.

Interpreted: Yerington's girls -- 46-30 winners against Truckee, Calif., in the title game Saturday -- are the odds-on favorites to repeat as champions next season.

There are three major reasons -- first, Pahrump Valley moves on to Class 4-A and second and third, Karrie-Ann Quartz and Kayla Lommori, the Lions' twin towers, will be back for their senior campaigns. There won't be a 3-A team with the Lions' imposing credentials in 2008-2009.

Quartz and Lommori led the Lions -- ranked No. 1 in the final Pahrump Valley Times Nevada High School Class 3-A ratings -- to 29 wins in 34 games, and they figure to be even better next season for coach Dorsey Thom's team.

The presence of the 6-foot forwards this season finally proved decisive in the state tournament, when everything was on the line. That has to concern the Lions' Northern 3-A League rivals, as well as the teams in the Southern League, next season.

Virgin Valley won more than 20 games this season, but the Bulldogs will be without state MVP Courtney Spawn, who graduates. Spawn was the game-breaker for the Bulldogs for four years; this season, her presence helped take the pressure off 6-foot-3 Rachel Morris, a freshman center. A big question: who's going to do that particular job in 2008-2009?

Northern League teams took turns beating each other up this season, but don't figure on Truckee, Winnemucca Lowry or Spring Creek to challenge the Lions -- if Quartz and Lommori dedicate their senior seasons to a purpose -- and that is to repeat as champions.

Yerington could be as powerful a team as was Spring Creek in 2006 and 2007, when guard Johnna Ward sparked the Spartans to back-to-back titles.

The scenario is the same in Nevada Class 3-A boys' basketball. Brett Walter, the coach at Faith Lutheran, has a program that loses quality players each year, but always seems to have boys ready to take on the challenge and play with a singular purpose -- to win a state championship.

Saturday, as brutal winter weather was closing in on Reno, the Crusaders blistered Dayton's Dust Devils 59-40 for their fourth straight 3-A championship.

Walters' team loses the big three of Max Done, Diontea Wright and Connor Maloney. But a lot of what made the Crusaders too tough to tame this season -- 6-2 freshman Brent Lubbe off the bench; 6-1 guard Chase Saunders running the perimeter and the Crusaders unwillingness to back off a good court fight -- will still be present.

The Crusaders are able to re-load each season because of their excellent junior varsity and freshmen programs. They figure to be equally as devastating next season, even without the Done-Wright-Maloney trio.

Dayton has tried in vain for four years to beat the Crusaders; next season, the Dust Devils won't have Tanner Wood around to lead them -- and there is the spectre of going 0-for-4 in big games against Faith Lutheran.

Sparks loses 10 seniors and Incline has to grow physically stronger before it can challenge anyone for supremacy in Class 3-A.

Down South, rivals have posted only two wins in more than 40 starts in five seasons against the Crusaders. That's a major psychological factor favoring Faith Lutheran in the Southern League, now down to four schools with the departure of Pahrump Valley.

Of course, who will really care that much about what happens in Nevada's Class 3-A leagues? The Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association obviously didn't care. Otherwise, why did it approve moving Pahrump Valley out of what was just a five-school league to become a member of the huge Clark County-dominated Class 4-A organization?

There will be almost as many schools in the 4-A Sunset Region Southwest Division -- nine -- as there will be in Class 3-A statewide (11). Ah, the decisions adults make. Aren't they wonderful ... not ...