DON McDERMOTT / PVT Kyle Mills, above, and McKenzie Dean, below, both Nevada Class 3-A state champions in track in spring 2007, will compete Tuesday when Pahrump Valley hosts Class 4-A Las Vegas Chaparral and Durango and Class A Laughlin in a quadrangular meet starting at 3:30 p.m. at the renovated high school stadium. Stadium reconstruction, done at an estimated cost of almost $600,000 was to be approved today. Advertisement

Almost 10 months after winning its first Nevada Class 3-A state track championship, the Pahrump Valley girls team will open the 2008 season Tuesday.

With Class 4-A Las Vegas Chaparral and Durango, along with 1-A Laughlin the opposition for the Lady Trojans and the PVHS boys, the meet starts at 3:30 p.m. at the newly-renovated high school stadium. The almost $600,000 project was to be completed today.

Andy Schneider will debut as the Trojans' coach; he replaced Jason Odegard, who is now a high school administrator in North Dakota.

Pahrump Valley outpointed Spring Creek for the 2007 state championship, but missing from that team are Dominique Maloy, Casey Burtenshaw and Carrie Musick. "But we have back six of the nine girls who helped us win the state championship," said Schneider.

The six include McKenzie Dean, who won her second straight 3200-meter run championship; weights specialist Ashley Rencher; triple jumper Stephanie Manley and sprinters T. T. Hughes and Bethani Jackson.

For the boys, state triple jump champion Kyle Mills has returned, as have sprinters Sergio Castro and Anderson Floyd, and pole vaulters Elias Armendariz and James Chapman, among many others.

"What we are working on now is not so much times and distances, but getting into condition," said Schneider, who has more than 100 boys and girls on the training roster. Which means as many girls and boys as possible will compete Tuesday.

Saturday, the Trojans travel to Las Vegas to compete in the Louise Heitkotter Invitational at Faith Lutheran; the meet starts at 10 a.m.

Among the athletes going after starting jobs in track is Frank Lopez, Pahrump Valley's champion 285-pound wrestler, who is doing the shot put and discus. He played baseball in 2006 and 2007. Ashley Lindgren, a freshman guard on the PVHS basketball team that won the girls' 3-A Southern league and regional titles, is running the 100 and 200, along with the long jump.

Of prime concern, too, is getting enough adult volunteers to help run the meet Tuesday. Timekeepers and field event managers are needed. If anyone is interested in doing volunteer work of any kind at the Tuesday meet and Pahrump Valley's Rotary Invitational April 11 should contact the athletics department (727-7908).

NOTES -- Pahrump Valley's baseball and softball teams are at River Valley, Ariz., today and Saturday ... The Trojans' boys' golf team opens its season Wednesday with a Southern 3-A League meet at Boulder City ... The Trojans' tentative roster includes returnees Cameron Belcher, Shane Lindemann, William Peers and Daniel Shimakawa ... Coach Bob Hopkins has 21 players on the roster; among nine freshmen is Elliott Owens, a state 3-A runnerup at 103 pounds in wrestling ... The Pahrump Valley-Sierra Vista Invitational is March 17-18 at Mountain Falls. ... Dominique Maloy, who won 15 individual state championships in four years at PVHS, is on the defending NCAA Division I national championship Arizona State University team.

.. In a recent meet, Maloy was on a 4x400-meter relay team that won an indoor race in 3:37.34, one of the top times in the nation in the winter season ... Maloy was named student-athlete of the month in January for the Sun Devils ... Dominique was also a Maroon-and-Gold Scholar in the fall semester ... Maloy, along with other members of the track team, helped man the start and finish lines for the Phoenix Children's Hospital fun run in January.