As glittering as four of the Pioneer Valley League boys basketball team’s pre-season basketball records were this year, the slate will be wiped clean tonight when the PVL hoop race tips off in earnest on three fronts.

In case you didn’t notice, Colfax (14-3), Bear River (13-3), Lincoln (13-4) and Placer (13-4) combined to go an eye-popping 54-14 in the pre-season and all look like formable PVL contenders.

And despite Foothill (5-10) and Center (5-10) bringing up the rear of the PVL pack after the preseason, longtime hoop followers know it would be foolish to count the Mustangs and Cougars – the last two respective league champions – out of the league chase.

Tonight’s PVL openers show Colfax traveling to Foothill, Placer hosting Center and Bear River jaunting to Lincoln. All games start at 7 p.m. and will kick off a title chase that should be a fight all the way to the finish line.

Here are the PVL’s last seven champions:

2012 – Foothill, 10-0

2011 – Center, 10-0

2010 – Colfax, 11-1

2009 – Whitney, B. River, 10-2

2008 – Colfax, 11-1

2007 – Colfax, 12-0

2006 – Colfax, 12-0

Dave Miles memorial

A memorial service is planned on Sunday, March 10, at the Sierra Vista Community Center in Colfax for longtime Colfax area resident Dave Miles who passed away unexpectedly in October. Miles was a three-sport standout at Colfax High who graduated in 1971. A two-time all-Pioneer League pick in hoops, Miles still holds the CHS career scoring average in basketball with a mark of 20.7 points a game set in the 1970-71 seasons. An avid San Francisco 49ers fan, Miles had lived recently in the Auburn area. Miles, who was 59 when he passed, would have turned 60 on March 10. Watch this space in coming weeks for time and details of the Miles service.       

Arroyo is an Eagle

Former Colfax High football standout Marcus Arroyo is finding out that the life of an assistant football coach at the NCAA Div. I level can sometime be indeed nomadic. Arroyo landed on his feet recently at Southern Mississippi as the school’s offensive coordinator after Jeff Tedford and his staff at California was let go at the end of the recent season.

Arroyo was on Tedford's staff in Berkeley for two seasons, including his second campaign with the Golden Bears as the pass game coordinator and quarterbacks coach after receiving a promotion following his 2011 season as the quarterbacks coach. The former San Jose State quarterback has spent the last 11 seasons coaching at the collegiate level, including four as an offensive coordinator or co-offensive coordinator. His stops have been at San Jose State, Prairie View, back to San Jose State, Wyoming, Cal and now Southern Mississippi, the alma mater of Brett Favre.

In 2013 the Golden Eagles find themselves playing three tough out-of-conference road games with stops at Nebraska on Sept. 7, Arkansas on Sept. 14 and Boise St. on Sept. 28.