Ashley Battle, a member of three national championship teams at UConn, has been named the head girls' basketball coach at Chartiers Valley High in Bridgeville, Pa., which is about 10 miles from Battle's hometown of Pittsburgh.

Battle had 1,054 points, 696 rebounds, 235 assists and 191 steals in 149 career games at UConn from 2000-05. Battle was taken by Seattle with the25th overall pick in the 2005 WNBA draft and played in 142 regular-season games over six seasons. Most of her time came with the New York Liberty. Battle played for the Liberty from 2006-09 and her best season came in 2007 when she had career-best marks in scoring (7.4 points per game), rebounding (3.7) and assists (1.6). Her WNBA career came to an end after appearing in five gams with San Antonio in 2010.

Battle replaces Spencer Stefko who led Chartiers Valley to a 137-51 record over the last seven seasons. During the 2012-13 season Chartiers Valley went 22-8 and reached the WPIAL title game for the first time in program history before losing to Bethel Park in the Class AAAA final.

In recent weeks there have been no lack of updates on where Kelly Faris ranks on UConn's career charts.

However, when I think of what Faris contributes to the team it does not come down to the number of points, rebounds, assists or even steals that she gets on a nightly basis but the way that everything she does is about trying to win games. Faris, who will move into a tie with Ann Strother for the number of games played, is currently 10th all-time at UConn in the number of victories she has been on the court for..

Faris could finish as high as No. 5 on this list if UConn were to win the remainder of its games.

Here is the list
1. Maya Moore 150-4
2. Kalana Greene 148-9
3. Tiffany Hayes 147-7
4. Tina Charles 146-6
5. Renee Montgomery 139-11
6. Lorin Dixon 136-4
    Diana Taurasi 136-8
   Ashley Battle 136-13
9. Asjha Jones 135-9
10. Kelly Faris 133-9 (heading into tonight).

CURTIS EKMARK HONORED
Curtis Ekmark, the head coach and father of UConn commit Courtney Ekmark, was named the WBCA National High School Coach of the Year after leading St. Mary's to a 29-1 record and Arizona Division I state title.


Ekmark has a 154-21 record in six seasons at St. Mary's
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Ekmark will also coach the Purple team in the WBCA High School All-American Game and one of the players he will be coaching is UConn signee Saniya Chong out of Ossining (N.Y.) High School. The roster of the Purple team has some familiar names as former UConn recruiting targets Taya Reimer, Diamond DeShields (who was named the WBCA National Player of the Year), Erica McCall, Stephanie Mavunga and Karlie Samuelson are all on that squad.

The game will be played on Apr. 6 at the New Orleans Arena. Courtney Ekmark, a junior guard, is planning to join Curtis at the Final Four.

Former UConn star Swin Cash will be the honorary co-captain of the Black team while Tamika Catchings will be the honorary co-captain for the Purple squad.

Mike Thibault, the only coach in the history of the Connecticut Sun, signed a two-year extension through the 2012 season with an option for a third year.

Thibault was hired by the Sun when the Orlando Miracle franchise was relocated to play its games at Mohegan Sun Arena. The third-fastest WNBA coach to 100 wins, Thibault's .601 winning percentage is the most among active WNBA coaches. A two-time WNBA coach of the year, Thibault led the Sun to the WNBA finals in 2004 and 2005. Last season was the only time he failed to guide Connecticut into the playoffs.

"I have enjoyed every part of being here, every part of this job,” Thibault said in a statement. “I look forward to going to work every day. I like my team and I like the direction we are headed. There's a lot that goes in to building a winning organization, and I think we've done a lot of great things to give us a bright future. I’m looking forward to being the coach of this group."

The Sun open the 2010 season with a home game against Chicago on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. at Mohegan Sun Arena.

Now for some addition WNBA news, Thibault said on a live chat he did with The Day of New London newspaper that the team is cutting undrafted rookie free agents May Kotsopoulos and Judie Lomax although there's a chance one of them can be brought back on a temporary basis as long as the Sun can manage it while being in compliance with the league's salary cap.

Former UConn wing Ashley Battle was cut by the Indiana Fever. Battle was made expendable after a couple of solid seasons in New York when the Liberty drafted ex-Huksy Kalana Greene and was picked up by Indiana. Maybe it's just me, but a player like Battle would seem to thrive in an uptempo system like the one new coach Nolan Richardson is running in Tulsa. However, I don't claim to be up to speed on Tulsa's salary-cap situation.

Speaking of Greene, there were some technical difficulties but videos of a post-game interview and her taking part in a question and answer session with youngsters after Tuesday's exhibition game are up on the Register's site.

Former UConn guard/forward Ashley Battle was waived by the New York Liberty on Tuesday.

Battle played the last four seasons with New York, averaging 5.1 points, 2.4 rebounds, 1.1 assists and 0.8 steals.

Battle, a 27-year-old native of Pittsburgh, was a second-round by Seattle in 2005 but only played two games with the Storm.

Battle was a member of three national championship teams at UConn and had 1,054 points in 149 games for the Huskies. Her 149 games played was an NCAA record before it was broken first by UConn's Renee Montgomery and then by the Huskies' Kalana Greene, who will likely be asked to deliver much of the energy and defensive presence that Battle provided for the Liberty over the last four seasons.