Big Girl

Audrey Codner was looking for a challenge when she entered Cardinal Dougherty High School as a freshman four years ago. "I wanted to do something different," the Cardinals' 6-foot, 2-inch senior center recalled after signing a national letter of intent Nov. 13 to attend St. Joseph's University on a full basketball scholarship. "The very first time I touched a ball was the day I tried out" for the basketball team, Codner said. "When I think back now, I can't believe that I made the team.

Beirut-born Michael Penniman - Mika to you - might not seem the dream of teen lasses and sorority girls. He's high-pitched, slight-of-build, and makes exuberant music that's an au courant, hit-making encapsulation of all things Glam Rock and fussily British (Sparks, Elton). Yet, there he was - all snug-fitting tux and tight curls - thrilling an all-ages crowd of gals and the boys who love them during a sold-out show at Union Transfer Monday in what was billed as an "intimate evening with . . . " What that meant was that his usually crowded stage and busy arrangements were stripped down to just Mika trilling theatrically and hammering piano, with instrumentalist/vocalists along for the bumpy ride.

When told that his team had just forced Bensalem into 42 turnovers Friday night, North Penn coach Jim Crawford smiled. But when told that his team had just committed 42 turnovers, Bensalem coach Don Bogan also smiled. "They just came out with a different fire in their eyes," Bogan said after North Penn took a 79-31 victory in the Suburban One National Conference Patriot Division girls' basketball season opener for both teams. "I think we panicked. When our shots didn't drop, we started making dumb passes and playing one on one. With the press they became sharks when someone bleeds in the water.

Officer Stanley Bacone was behind the wheel of a Philadelphia Housing Authority patrol car on March 5, 1998, and Officer Angela Allen was on the passenger seat beside him. In a lawsuit alleging civil rights violations, Bacone said that as he drove along Grays Ferry Avenue that day, Allen "unexpectedly" grabbed his groin and "massaged his penis," nearly causing him "to have an accident. " The suit, filed in U.S. District Court by attorneys Richard A. Sprague and Joseph Podraza Jr., said that despite Bacone's reporting the incident and other unwelcome sexual advances, his superior officer just laughed at him and did nothing.

Sponge front man Vinnie Dombroski couldn't sit still for five seconds, much less stay onstage. About a minute into "My Purity," the first song of the grungers-turned-glam-rockers' action-packed set at the Trocadero on Sunday night, he was already diving into the crowd - many of whom couldn't stay off of the stage. Soon afterward, he traded his brown velvet jacket for a cordless microphone. During "Rotting Pinata," a song that Dombroski introduced as being about birth and death, he climbed up a stack of speakers and into the balcony, momentarily crossing the boundary between where the kids watch the show and where the adults go to drink up above.

Keisha Carmichael, a 5-foot, 11-inch 195-pound senior, is putting Pennsauken Tech on the girls' basketball map. "A lot of college coaches want a look at her," Tech coach Rhonda Ritz said. "She has all the moves and she's an excellent shooter, a good ball handler and a good rebounder. She has to lose some weight - 195 pounds is a big girl. " Carmichael averaged 16.1 points as a sophomore. Last year, she suffered a knee injury in the first half of the first game and missed the rest of the season.

Cheri S. Bailey is trying to make an important point with "A Midsummer Night's Dream - A Big-Girl Playground!" at Club Damani on Saturday: "Everyone's accepted. " Of course, to make sense of the name for the monthly "Utopia" parties, you have to know that they cater to women size 12 and up (and their admirers). "These events are pretty much held in every city," says Bailey, who promotes the party through her company, C.A.K.E - Creating Access to Kurvaceous Experiences. "Philly never had its own. " On the scene since April, the party has been popular, drawing people from all over Philly, New Jersey and Delaware, though it has taken time for the trend to hit here.

Meditation of a Modern Believer By Christian Wiman Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $24. Reviewed by John Timpane Christian Wiman is a believer from a class of people who, in the minds of some, aren't supposed to believe. He's a poet - editor of Poetry magazine, a job he'll be leaving in June - a leading intellect, an artist. He's also facing cancer. He believes in God and, in My Bright Abyss , seeks to portray what that's like as of 2013 if you want to be an intelligent, aware, non-self-deluding, tough-minded, free-speaking person here and now. My Bright Abyss is a dark, mountainous work, part poet's notebook, part meditation, part illness journal.

Two days before she died, Katrina Price put on glossy lipstick and her favorite gold-hoop earrings, combed her bangs to the top of her eyebrows, and went out to watch a college basketball game. It was Jan. 16 on the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University. In the stands, spectators stopped to welcome her back, and for everyone, she had friendly handshakes and warm words spoken with a Texas drawl. Price, 23, had returned only recently to this college town where she had set Ladyjacks scoring records and won games on midcourt miracle shots.

What a way for Cherokee and Eastern to start the girls' basketball season last night. The tip-off was in an Olympic Conference American Division game. Both teams were ranked in a preseason top 10 poll and each had an Inquirer Dream Team member in the lineup. Cherokee's Tiffany Turner and Eastern's Genevieve Okoro didn't disappoint, either. Okoro, a 6-foot-1 senior center, pumped in a team-high 16 points and grabbed seven rebounds to lead the host Vikings to a 53-45 victory.