Last week the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association Board of Control approved the latest realignment that was brought to them by the Realignment Focus Committee that was created about a year ago.
Lowry High School principal Ray Parks did his best along with Washoe County Athletic Director Brian Rothe to get the best fit and change for northern Nevada. Both had different agendas as Rothe wanted the best for the large schools in Washoe County, while Parks was the lone voice for rural Nevada. In the end, Las Vegas won out as usual.
In the long run, nothing will change for the likes of Lowry, Elko, Spring Creek, Churchill County, Boulder City, Moapa Valley and Virgin Valley. The rural schools that built Nevada are being ignored to satisfy the egos in Las Vegas.
Schools in Division I-A are celebrating the move of Faith Lutheran to Division I. The Crusaders won six state championships this past school year and 16 in the last three.
Faith Lutheran has caused Lowry some heartbreak in that time frame. You can ask the girls golf, boys golf, girls basketball and football teams about that.
Everyone hates Faith Lutheran for winning, but it’s not their fault. The Crusaders are playing by the rules the NIAA lets them. For the right price, you can send your child to a nice private school in Las Vegas.
When the Buckaroo football team played the Crusaders in the 2013 state semifinals, MLB players Shane Victarino and Ryan Howard were over by their sideline.
Sure Faith Lutheran’s move up will give teams in northern Nevada a better shot a state tournament, but allowing the large Las Vegas schools compete with rural schools is going to be a battle that will likely never be fixed.
The Elko boys basketball team is a good example. The Indians had one of their best influx of players in decades and only have a few Division I-A North championships to show for it. Desert Pines upset Elko in the state semifinals this past year.
You could say the same for the Lowry boys basketball team. The Buckaroos have gone to the state championships in the last seven years and have one title in that time frame. You can thank Clark (twice) and Desert Pines for that. Both are magnet schools and basically can recruit players that qualify for their programs.
The Lowry girls basketball team has rolled through the Division I-A North last two years. After winning the state title in 2014, the Lady Bucks had a tough match-up in the semifinals with Faith Lutheran in 2015. Lowry could beat that team, but would have had to meet up with Spring Valley, who dropped to Division I-A this past year. Spring Valley won one game the year before, but somehow you find the right players in just a year, win 32 games and win a state title. Sure.
The same teams that northern Nevada has competed against in the past three to four years will stay the same for the next five years. Realignment is done every four years.
Northern Nevada has had some luck in the last few years, with Dayton winning a state championships in boys track and field and Churchill County with baseball and softball this year.
It seems schools in the North have had a better time competing in girls sports. Churchill County and Fernley have been dominant in softball the last three seasons. The Division I-A south is just not that good in softball. Who knows, if the Lady Bucks had made the state tournament in any of those last three years, they could have won a state title. It was that close with those three schools.
Division I-A soccer in Nevada has always been dominated by schools in Lake Tahoe, actually, in California (Truckee and South Tahoe). The Sparks’ boys team has come on lately, but the addition of schools in Las Vegas have made it tougher to win for the likes of South Tahoe and Truckee. A northern school outside the Lake Tahoe/Reno region has never won a state title. For me, I have a hard time seeing any of that changing.
The easiest thing to do is create a fifth league. There are ways you can do it. The people to be in Nevada would to need to break up some of the Division I-A schools. You leave the Division I-A North, which will be 3A again in 2016-17, as it is. Right now the league is near perfect. The addition of a Wooster or Hug would be ideal to create 10 teams.
In the South, you pull out Boulder City, Moapa Valley, Virgin Valley and Pahrump Valley. From there, you take the five worst point totals from the Division I-A South used in the rubric system to create a nine-team league in the new 3A.
To create the 4A, you would take a majority of the teams in the Division I-A South to create a 12-team league. Some schools from Division I (5A) would move down.
This 4A league would compete with the likes of Reno, Reed, McQueen, Spanish Springs for state titles.
The new 5A league would consist of just 16 Las Vegas schools, in two eight-team divisions. Those schools would play for a southern championship and have no state tournament against the North.
Since the fight of realignment is done, the battle of playoff spots in the state tournaments are just beginning. The South will have seven more teams in its league and wants a majority of the playoff spots.
All I can say is, if you are a member of the Division I-A North, you better win the regional title. If that doesn’t happen, your good year got bad really quick. If you are the regular season champ and have one bad night, it will be tough to swallow. Don’t be surprised to see six teams from the South and three from the North at future state wrestling tournaments.
The goal of the Division I-A North is to have equal billing when state championships are played in northern Nevada. Good luck with that.
