Lehigh Valley Conference principals and athletic directors met Monday morning in an emergency meeting to discuss the future of the LVC as we know it, following last week's developments that the Mountain Valley Conference invited 10 of the league's schools to form a 'super conference,' while excluding Bethlehem Catholic and Central Catholic.

Bethlehem Catholic Principal John Petruzzelli spoke at length about Monday's meeting and thought there was good discussion among all the schools in the conference.Asked whether he felt better on Monday than he did 10 days ago when news of the invites surfaced, Petruzzelli indicated he did."I still feel positive and I'm hopeful," he said. "I certainly didn't walk out of that meeting saying, 'Oh man, this is terrible.' Lots of people are still talking about what to do, so I didn't get the feeling that this was a done deal."All 12 schools of the LVC voiced their opinion on the matter of joining the MVC, but Petruzzelli cited that all schools were looking for what was best for their kids.Bethlehem Catholic also reiterated its stance on moving up to the AAAA classification if that was a requirement to join the new league."That did come up at the meeting, and again, that's not our first choice to go to AAAA," he said, "but if that was the requirement, we would do it. "Some schools said that shouldn't be a requirement. I was pleasantly surprised by that and the good thing about this meeting is that people were able to share what's on their mind. Everyone was respectful and that's the great thing about the democratic process because everyone wants to be heard."Petruzzelli did not go into specifics about what was talked about at the meeting or which schools particularly were vocal in their charge to defect.Monday's meeting was scheduled to talk specifically on the LVC-MVC topic because the normally scheduled principal-athletic director meeting is scheduled for today. Officials didn't want the hot button issue to distract them from other topics that are generally discussed at their regular meeting.Sources have said that there are schools in favor of leaving the LVC and there are schools opposed to the idea. How many that are on each side of the fence is unknown. How this will all play out in the coming weeks before the May 31 invitation is also anyone's guess.Ultimately, the superintendents of each district will make the decisions on this matter. It's fair to assume that there are still going to be discussions among top officials from each district on what each school is going to do.Whether this is a majority rule type of situation is uncertain as well. For example, if six schools want to leave and four want to stay, would the schools resistant to defecting follow suit so they wouldn't be left out in the cold?Monday's meeting was an open dialogue, but how open each school was in their intentions will never be known.All that Petruzzelli knows is that he was able to get a better feeling of the situation at the moment."I wanted to hear where everyone was at," he said. "I wanted to know if this was a done deal or if this was still in the talking stages. Again, we're one of the two schools that didn't get the invite. I'm more positive now because I didn't hear them say, 'We're leaving, see you later, good luck.'"