Three down, five to go.

All-Delco Week for the spring season is well underway. So far Chichester's Aurora Kan was named the golf Player of the Year, and Penncrest's Karen Shump defended her status as girls track Athlete of the Year with her fourth-such honor.

Now we move onto today's honoree - Penncrest's Anthony Batch, whose superb all-around season earned him boys track Athlete of the Year. Batch had the second-best time in the state in the 400 - his best event - and won all but one race this year, the 400-meter final at states.

In other high school news:
Batch's teammate Jerry Thompson made his commitment to South Carolina recently. Thompson, an All-Delco pole vaulter for two seasons, looks to continue that down in S.C., though he could pursue a future in the decathlon.

And finally, Chichester has hired Tom Dougherty as its new boys basketball coach. Dougherty has a bevy of experience, having coached at Sun Valley, Academy Park and Neumann-Goretti among others. He will replace Alan Munford, who left the Eagles to accept a head-coaching vacancy at his alma mater of Harry S Truman H.S. in Levittown.

The baseball season may have ended in the state tournament (or district tournament) for some teams, but area players are still lacing up their cleats and pounding their mitts.

Marple Newtown's Chris Orlando (pictured) knows this all too well.

He and his Delaware County teammates dropped a close one to Chester County, 9-7, Monday in the first round of the Carpenter Cup Classic. Their opening-round loss in the 16-team all-star tournament was Delco's seventh in nine years.

And the sweltering heat and humidity at UPenn's Meiklejohn Stadium only made matters worse. Said Sun Valley catcher Joe Maloney, who strapped on his equipment for six brutal innings: "I've played in some hot ones before and this one, wow, it was the first real hot one of the year."

The game offered a chance for younger players, like junior shortstop Ronny Tanner of Haverford, a first chance to play before major-league talent scouts and college coaches. And here's a preview story for Monday's game (sorry for the belated post).

Also in the Carpenter Cup, the Catholic League franchise, which features six players from Delco schools, will open its play Wednesday in a 9 a.m. game at UPenn. Monsignor Bonner's reps are Conor Kerins, Rob Benedict and Lou Tomasetti. Cardinal O'Hara has Bill Pace, Tom Coyle and Mike Baselice on the team.

Let's hope the weather cools off by gametime.

American Christian Academy, the tiny prep school in Aston that earned so much national attention in the last couple years, is no more.

Earlier this week, administrators at the school announced that it will end its middle-school and high-school services and maintain only its elementary-school operations, primarily serving as a school for Baptist-church-related education.

The decision ends American Christian's run atop the national prep-school landscape. Players like Dwayne Jones (St. Joseph's U, Cleveland Cavaliers) all the way to Tyreke Evans (Memphis U) made their home with the Eagles. Reasons for the decision were not made official, though it's believed that the closing of the middle and high schools is related to finances or the school's always-in-question academic standards.

Said former coach Ray Carroll, in a 2006 interview with the Daily Times: "They sit in a classroom where there's no reading, no writing and no teaching taking place. ...These kids are great kids who want to learn, but don't know how. I often walk by their classrooms and see them sleeping."

For more on American Christian, check out the story from earlier this week.

CHESTER TO NAME COACH TODAY
The boys basketball program at Chester High has been without a coach long enough. Mere minutes after the leading the Clippers to their sixth big-school state title, 13-year coach Fred Pickett announced his retirement, which means the spot has been vacant for nearly three months.

It is believed that longtime assistant Larry Yarbray will take Pickett's spot on the bench. That decision, which has been confirmed by multiple sources, will be confirmed tonight at a Chester Upland School Board meeting.

More to come when everything's official. Until then, check out today's story.

Two Delco baseball teams entered Monday's first round of the PIAA Class AAAA state tournament. None advanced to today's second round.

Pitcher Steve DeCecco had a tough time finding the strike zone in the Marple Newtown's 8-3 loss to Muhlenberg, at Wenger Field in Fredericksburg.

At West Chester University, Mike Pappas gave up just one run but that was one too many in Sun Valley's 1-0 loss to Fleetwood.