[PHSForever]

Watered down 6 class system vs. watered down Eastern 1A.. for decades Pikeville's only competition to reach the Semi-State was Paintsville and Hazard... at least Belfry has had to get through Breathitt County, Russell, and Somerset while in the new 3A.

Also 31-18-3 still has no argument as well.

This all just reinforces what my initial point was...before the past decade the programs have been very similar with the exception of Pikeville's 3-peat title run that clearly made them the best program, but you can't ignore a decade of utter dominance on every level when it is 20% of the entire timeline of the series.. and what belfry has done in their dominant run has swung the pendulum back to their favor as the best program.

Have to pump the brakes on this a bit here. Yes, Pikeville has been in A class for a long time now. HOWEVER, the 2 runner up years in 72 and 79, they were AA. While they bounced back and forth a few years betweenA and AA, mostly have been A. Now, Belfry is a relative newcomer to AAA. they were AA up until I believe 2004? But we all know they were in the upper echelon student count wise of that, and really probably should have been AAA, but it is what is is. Having said that, the argument stands that Belfry really had an easy road several of those years as well to the semi-finals,some years' easier than Pikeville's road (not many though). Since moving to AAA Belfry has not won a title. It's been a fun debate to read and lightly participate in. I've enjoyed reading all the points. I think the main thing we can all agree on, Pikeville and Belfry really established modern day mountain team respectability, dominance, name recognition.