December 4, 2008 Issue                                                     

Local News

Avenue construction project wraps up in time for holidays
by Jennifer Katz

Germantown Avenue reopened the week before Thanksgiving to a general sigh of relief from the business owners along the construction corridor and a few lingering doubts about the future.

Mt. Airy pharmacy is last area independent
by JOEL HOFFMANN

Lynne Berkowitz found no reason to rejoice when Reese Pharmacy in Chestnut Hill went out of business.

Over the past 35 years, Berkowitz, owner of Cooperman’s Pharmacy at Germantown and Mt. Pleasant avenues in Mt. Airy, has seen independent pharmacies steadily disappear from Northwest Philadelphia, allowing chain stores like CVS and Rite Aid to dominate the region.

Local Sports

GA and Mount meet in hoops tune-up
by TOM UTESCHER

GA’s Monica Schacker (right) tries to pry the ball away from the Mount’s Mary Jo Horgan. GA’s Jesse Carey is in the background.

An early season basketball scrimmage last Tuesday afternoon featured a pair of defending league champions whose circumstances differed as they entered the 2008-2009 campaign.

The host of last week’s practice bout, Germantown Academy, has won the Girls’ Inter-Ac League championship for 10 years in a row, and the Patriots have almost everyone from last year’s roster back this season.

By contrast, Mount St. Joseph Academy, two-time titlist in the Athletic Association of Catholic Academies and the defending PIAA Class AAA State Champion, graduated five of its top seven players. Three of them were starters: forward Sarah McGorry (Lafayette College) and guards Ryann Gallagher (Catholic University), and Laura Johnson (Princeton).

With the Patriots also having started practice a week earlier than the Magic (GA is not a member of the PIAA, which pushed back the starting date for winter sports activity by one week this year), it wasn’t a surprise when Germantown felled the Mount, 70-47, in a scrimmage consisting of five eight-minute periods (with some on-court coaching interludes).

CHA squash boasts a veteran varsity
by TOM UTESCHER

Steve Wetherill and Chip Culp, the top two squash players for  Chestnut Hill Academy last season, have moved on to the college ranks, and this year’s lineup lists no seniors at all. Still, the Blue Devils return a lot of younger players who now have several years of varsity experience, and while the team may lack a lights-out No. 1 such as Episcopal Academy senior Todd Harrity (the top junior-level player in the nation), the Devils’ depth should allow them to stay with most opponents this winter.