HIGH SCHOOLS Penn State pick for Prep senior

The purchase of team jackets at Hatboro-Horsham led to controversy.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
One of the Pennsylvania's top girls basketball recruits has already made her college decision.
Mashea Williams, who led Mercyhurst Prep to the 2004 PIAA Class AAAA basketball championship as a junior, has already announced her intention to play for Penn State.
Williams, who will be a senior this season, made the announcement last week after taking an unofficial visit to Penn State and talking with Mercyhurst Prep graduate Angie Potthoff, who also played basketball at Penn State.
"[Mashea] talked to Angie a lot," said Monica Jones, Williams' mother. "She offered a lot of advice. [Potthoff has] been there and knows what it's all about."
Williams had several scholarship offers, including full offers from Pittsburgh and Georgetown.
"Penn State has great academics and great athletics," said Williams, an Associated Press Class AAAA first-team selection. "It's also close enough to home that my family and friends can see me play. That influenced me."
She said the decision should help Mercyhurst Prep.
"There will be pressure because we are the defending state champions," Williams said.
"This [early decision] will take some of the pressure off. ... Now I can go out and play and I don't have to worry about making visits and answering recruiting calls."
Sanctions
Hatboro-Horsham High School has been sanctioned by the Philadelphia-area Suburban One League for permitting the purchase of league championship jackets for its football team in defiance of a league edict.
The school contended that it had won the Suburban One League's Liberty Division title on the field, even though it had formally forfeited to a league opponent -- Quakertown -- early in the season because of a teacher's strike. Hatboro-Horsham then defeated Quakertown late in the season when the two schools were able to schedule the game.
With the forfeit over Hatboro-Horsham, Quakertown won the division title. Had the league allowed the rescheduled game to stand, which it did not, Hatboro-Horsham, Quakertown and Cheltenham would have shared the title.
Although the league rejected an appeal by Hatboro-Horsham and made it clear that Quakertown was considered the Liberty Division champion, Hatboro-Horsham did nothing to stop the purchase of the jackets, which was made by a private donor.
Hatboro-Horsham head football coach Dave Sanderson acknowledged that emblazoning the jackets with a championship patch was his idea and was supported by the school's athletic director, Mark Ridgway.
Once the jackets were seen in public, the league decided to punish Hatboro-Horsham by asking principal Jim Sullivan to write a letter of apology to the league, placing the school on a one-year probation to monitor its compliance of league rules, explain to the football team that it did not win the division title, and to either remove or cover the embroidery on the jackets that declared a league championship.
The school has agreed to all of those points. Hatboro-Horsham remains eligible to win a league championship in football this season.
Thanksgiving game
Talks between William Tennent and Neshaminy high schools to establish a Thanksgiving Day game have ended with no game in place.
The two schools had discussed scheduling a Thanksgiving game to fill the void left by an acrimonious split between Tennent and Archbishop Wood last year.
Archbishop Wood unilaterally canceled the 10-year-old holiday series last season, claiming it needed to prepare for the weather-delayed Philadelphia Catholic League playoffs.