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May 15, 2009
A whole lot of stuff goin' on
There are so many things happening at the moment, some items that deserve our attention are temporarily frozen in time as words in a notebook or on statistics sheets delivered to our office in recent days. Bear with us ... we'll catch up. A personal aside ... we started working with the Times on May 7, 2001, joining Marie Wujek, Rich Thurlow, Henry Brean, Doug McMurdo, Horace Langford Jr. and Heather Adams (now Ruth) and the rest of the gang. Wow! ... time flies when you're having fun. You are having fun ... aren't you? Meanwhile, there are many major stories already in the works. Not the least of which is what will happen with the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association's proposal for realignment. One of the recommendations, as reported in the Wednesday Times, was moving Pahrump Valley into the Division II Sunset Region, along with Las Vegas high schools Arbor View, Clark, Desert Oasis, Faith Lutheran, Legacy, Mojave and Western. It sounds like a solid idea, but think for a moment ... recent illogical decisions by supposedly right-thinking adults ... Moving Pahrump Valley out of the Southern Nevada Class 3-A League into Class 4-A was the first step toward academic and athletic disasters ... PVHS shifted, which led to Faith Lutheran deciding to move into 4-A as well from 3-A ... that decision -- surprisingly accepted by the NIAA -- created even more problems concerning scheduling and traveling, as well as abdicating critical responsibilities concerning student-athletes. There could be a simple solution: move PVHS and Faith Lutheran back into Class 3-A, along with Virgin Valley, Moapa Valley and Boulder City. Add Vo-Tech and any new Las Vegas high school and create a solid seven-school league. Hey, it sounds like fun, but being a betting man, it ain't gonna happen. Connected with this realignment proposal is the knowledge that school funding will affect what happens with the number of teams able to function, and how many coaches will be employed to direct them ... among many other scenarios, many of which are too complex to discuss here at this moment in time. -- A blast from the past ... In the NIAA spring bulletin is this note ... "Alaine Garrett's rise to the top of the 1997 3-A state girls golf championship leader board was 11-plus years in the making. But it was worth the wait. "The NIAA board of control approved unanimously during its March meeting to waive a two-stroke penalty assessed Garrett (and the rest of the Pahrump Valley girls golf team) for playing the state tournament course during a seven-day blackout period." With that penalty waived, Garrett became a co-champion, along with Battle Mountain's Veronica Saldivar. The 1997 Lady Trojans won the state title, the first of five they would claim over a 10-year period. The 2002, 2005, 2006 and 2007 PVHS girls golf teams won the others. ---- Pahrump Valley's girls softball team won five of its last six games to finish 7-9 in the Sunset Region Southwest Class 4-A Division. Barring any unusual happening, eight of the nine starters and all of the backups will return for the 2010 season. "We made the adjustments we had to make," said Rich Lauver, the Trojans coach. "It just took a little longer to do it, because of the number of games we played. We figured it would take 20 games to make the adjustments, but we had only eight games left when we got to 20." The PV girls, 11-17 in all games, had a composite batting average of .308 as they averaged seven runs and eight hits per game. Junior shortstop Taylor Raymer batted a team-best .402 and led with 35 hits. Sophomore outfielder Leanne Morrow hit .377, with Becca Gamble at .368, Karen Daun (the lone senior) .339 and sophomore catcher Petra Beighley .330. Beighley had a team-best four triples and drove in 20 runs, second only to the 32 RBIs by Gamble. "Once we figured things out, we responded pretty well," said Lauver. Something Lauver would like to do now is form a summer program, where girls can get in more repetitions in all phases of the game. He knows that the best teams in the sport are for all practical purposes, year-round club teams. -- Pahrump Valley is listed among teams in the Nevada Youth Baseball Association, which operates the American Legion program. Brandon Bietar is likely to return as the Trojans' manager; the 2008 team was 11-9 and finished fifth in the Silver Class AAA division. ---- Dominique Maloy is having a quality season, as a sophomore on the Arizona State University track team. Maloy, who won 15 individual titles as a member of the Pahrump Valley track teams from 2003 through 2007, has run the 200-meter dash in 0:23.28, the 100 in 0:11.68 and the 400 in 0:55.52 for ASU, one of the nation's best NCAA Division I programs. |
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