King directed the inaugural Octorara middle school team to a 3-3 record last season. Octorara is the only one of the five Southern Chester League Schools joining the Ches-Mont League next fall that has not had a football program.

SCCL members Great Valley, Kennett, Unionville and Oxford will move into the Ches-Mont with Octorara.

"There's some excitement here as the [football] program moves forward," Weagley said. "We wanted to see how well it would go, and I think we can say it exceeded our expectations."

The middle school program started with 41 players and ended the season with 40. With King moving up to the junior varsity, Jamie Schempp is scheduled to take over the middle school team.

"Being a new program with kids who hadn't played football before, we weren't sure how many kids we would lose once the contact began," Weagley said. "We're taking a slow course on this."

The junior varsity program has a schedule that includes games against Kennett, Oxford and Twin Valley.

Walsh contributing. Former Downingtown East standout Jamie Walsh is making a steady contribution as a freshman on the La Salle University women's basketball team, which already has surpassed its 2005-06 win total of 12.

Walsh, who scored 1,833 points in her high school career, has averaged about 4 points per game for the Explorers in a substitute role. The Explorers won 13 of their first 16 games this season, including Big Five victories over Villanova and Penn.

Over that stretch, Walsh had her best game when she scored 11 points, grabbed four rebounds and had two steals in a 70-59 loss to nationally ranked Vanderbilt on Dec. 31 in Nashville, Tenn.

Through 16 games, Walsh ranked in the top three on the team in three-point percentage and free-throw percentage. She had 14 three-pointers.

High-flying Phantoms. The Phoenixville track team took first in both the boys' and girls' pole vault and high-jump events at the Chester County Indoor championships, held Jan. 8 at Ursinus College.

Sophomore Kyriq Williams won the boys' high jump with a leap of 6 feet. Williams, who had a 6-4 effort earlier this season, tried to clear 6-5 next but hit the bar each time.

Senior Kathleen King won the girls' high jump with a 4-10 effort. She missed three times at 5-0.

Tony Shirk cleared 13-6 to take the gold medal in the boys' pole vault. He moved the bar to 14-2 but missed his three attempts. Rachel Schaefer took the girls' pole vault at 9-0.

Phantoms' boys basketball player Jon Hogga has been flying high, too. He reached the 1,000-point mark for his career in a 54-42 victory over Spring-Ford on Jan. 6. He needed only five points to reach the mark entering the game. He did it quickly with a three-pointer and then a steal and layup with less than two minutes gone in the game. He finished with 15 points.