Burlington

Rob Shuey of Bent Creek Country Club, the first-round leader, won the $17,000 Philadelphia PGA Burlington Classic yesterday with a 36-hole score of 6-under-par 134 at Burlington Country Club. In Sunday's first round, Shuey led by 1 stroke with a 5-under-par 65. Yesterday, he shot a 1-under-par 69 after a rain delay of 1 hour, 15 minutes. Willie Scholl of Gulph Mills won the Senior Division by 2 strokes over Dennis Milne of Trenton Country Club with 66-77-143.

As a desperation three-point shot by a Burlington player fell short at the buzzer, hundreds of Gloucester High fans charged onto the court to celebrate their team's tough win last night. Gloucester had survived, despite being rattled by a furious full-court press that caused it to lose a 13-point lead. Mark Watermasysk, a 6-foot-6 senior center, scored 18 points and grabbed 13 rebounds, while sophomore guard Sean Gorman contributed eight assists, six steals and nine rebounds, helping top-seeded Gloucester outlast eighth-seeded Burlington, 59-56, in a South Jersey Group 1 quarterfinal game.

A Trenton firm will go before the Burlington City Planning Board Thursday to seek approval of a proposal to build 20 townhouses at Fourth and High Streets. August Fasolino, a principal in V.A.F. Associates of Trenton, said that if approval was received, building would start in the spring, with the houses selling "in the $60,000 range. " The hearing is set for 7:30 p.m. in City Hall. The 1.17-acre site, on the southeast corner of the intersection, extends to Pope Avenue.

Nicholas Poveromo of Burlington carded a net score of 65 to win the Chapman Memorial Tournament yesterday at Kennett Square Golf and Country Club. Poveromo beat J. Fred Christman and James Sherratt by 4 strokes to win the Seniors net competition, for men 55 and over. Fred Klopp of Radley Run took the net in Super Seniors (men 65 and over) with a 65, William Campbell of Wilmington took Seniors gross with a 73, and James Van Zandt from Springhaven won Super Seniors net with an 80.

Greg Farrow of Burlington (N.J.) Country Club won the Bucks County Open Golf Tournament of the Philadelphia PGA with an 8-under-par 63 yesterday at the Bucks County Country Club. Farrow earned $750 from the $4,975 purse. The second prize of $600 went to Frank Dobbs of Spring-Ford Country Club with a 64. Mark Tingle of Bensalem CC headed the winning team in the pro-amateur event. His team had a two-best-ball score of 110.

The Burlington County College golf team qualified for its 10th straight trip to the NJCAA Division III championships after winning the Region 19 championship on Wednesday, and coach Dennis Gallagher is more excited than ever to make the trip to the Chautauqua (N.Y.) Golf Course on June 3-6. "We're definitely going to do something," Gallagher said. "We went to an invitational up there a few weeks ago and finished fourth out of 10 teams, and that was without [Chris] Binder. " Binder, a Collingswood High graduate, is the Barons' top golfer and was a medalist at the Region 19 tournament, shooting 84-77-161 at Baywood Golf Club in Delaware.

A Burlington City man has been charged with murder in the death of his 7- month-old daughter in March, authorities said yesterday. Raymond Cole, 38, assaulted the girl, Veronica Ayrer, while she was crying and fractured her skull, officials said. Cole then left the house in the 200 block of Mott Avenue for his job as a truck driver, they said. Burlington County Prosecutor Stephen G. Raymond said the child's mother, Martha Ayrer, who lives with Cole, was upstairs at the time of the assault on March 3. She later found that the child was not responding to her and took her to Rancocas Hospital in Willingboro.

Matt Hammond might have been the only player in the gym who wasn't overly impressed by his performance. The 6-foot-7 Burlington junior scored a career-high 34 points to lead the Blue Devils over Palmyra, 90-65, last night in a Burlington County League Freedom Division boys' basketball game. The win gave Burlington the upper hand in the Freedom. The Blue Devils are 5-2 overall and 4-0 in the division. Palmyra fell to 4-3, 2-1. "It's not the best I have played," said Hammond, who shot 15 for 17 from the field.

Buena earned a piece of South Jersey football lore yesterday, crushing Burlington by one of the biggest margins in area playoff history. The Chiefs won their Group 2 playoff game in a 48-0 blowout, the second- biggest margin ever recorded in a South Jersey football playoff. The record margin of victory is 52 points, set by Palmyra in a 58-6 win over Florence in the 1975 Group 1 semifinals. The Pals tied that margin by thrashing Point Pleasant Beach, 52-0, in a 1978 Group 1 semifinal.

Investigators are trying to determine the cause of a crash Tuesday morning involving a school bus and a car in Burlington Township that left seven elementary-school students and the car's driver injured. All eight were released after receiving treatment at area hospitals. The bus carrying 15 students was on its way to Fountain Woods Elementary School about 8:15 when it was hit on the front passenger-entrance side by a white Toyota Camry at Salem Road and Cynwyd Drive, officials said.

A Burlington County grand jury on Tuesday indicted Steven Donaldson, 29, of Shamong, on a charge of murder in connection with the death of a one-year-old on Feb. 12. The child, Claudia Nunes, had turned a year old the day before she was killed. She had been in foster care with Donaldson's girlfriend in Cinnaminson. The Burlington County Prosecutor's office laid out this account of the night's events: Donaldson was caring for the child while his girlfriend was at work, when, about 8 p.m., Donaldson contacted 9-1-1 and said the child wasn't breathing.

Nick Hammell describes himself as a "shake and bake" guy. "I rely a lot on athleticism. I do whatever I have to do to get by defenders, whatever comes natural," he said. Pat Carver is more of a bulldog. "I'm fearless," he said. "I'll put my head down, try to grind it out, and go to the net. And I'm always fighting to create my own opportunities off the ball - stay on the backside, always expect the ball, cut when no one's looking. " Aside from the fact that the two aren't particularly conventional, there aren't many similarities in the styles of Hammell and Carver.

Pat Welsh is used to recording saves from the mound, but on Thursday afternoon he used his arm and his bat to seal an extra-inning win for the Northern Burlington baseball team. With the score knotted at 7-7, Welsh crushed a double to score Tyler O'Dell in the top of the eighth inning, and the Greyhounds edged host Maple Shade, 9-7, in a Burlington County League game. The junior righthander, who starts at second base, survived a scare in the bottom of the eighth. After giving up a hit and two walks to load the bases with just one out, Welsh fanned the final two batters to earn the win. Northern Burlington trailed by a run entering the seventh inning and was down to its last out when Nick Wright ripped an 0-2 pitch to even the score, getting his second double of the game.

Burlington County officials announced Wednesday that they collected 454 guns - including 11 assault weapons - during a buyback program over the weekend. "We're pleased to get these off the street," said Sheriff Jean Stanfield, who noted that the guns were turned in anonymously by a wide variety of owners. "In some cases we had parents who were gun enthusiasts and felt differently about owning guns after they had children," Stanfield said. County officials spent $33,800 to buy the guns Saturday during the event at the Abundant Life Fellowship Church in Edgewater Park.

A small Burlington County zoo that was the scene of fatal fires, animal escapes, and violations over unsanitary and unsafe conditions closed last month. Animal Kingdom, which houses about 100 exotic creatures in rural Springfield Township, is up for sale for $2.4 million. The animals, valued at $1 million, are part of the purchase, according to a real estate listing posted by ReMax. Federal animal inspectors visited the zoo last week and then informed their state counterparts that the zoo was closed and that "the caretakers are still there and are caring for the animals," said Larry Hajna, spokesman for the state Division of Fish and Wildlife.

  A South Jersey tea-party organization is running a slate of candidates in the June 4 primary to challenge the Burlington County Republican Committee's picks for county and state offices. The West Jersey Tea Party, established in 2010, is endorsing candidates to seek the Republican nod to run for Burlington County sheriff, the one seat up for grabs on the county Board of Chosen Freeholders, and four state Assembly seats. The Democrats have no primary contests for these positions.

Tyler Kaiser has been throwing his knuckle-curve since he was 12. It's still surprising batters. But the bigger eye-opener has been the work of Kaiser and the rest of the Moorestown pitching staff through the first week of the baseball season. "We lost most of our pitchers from last year," said Kaiser, a senior who worked three scoreless innings of relief in a 3-1 victory over Burlington Township on Thursday in a clash of top 10 teams and Burlington County League Liberty Division rivals.

Weekly wages fell in Camden, Gloucester, and Burlington counties, the U.S. Labor Department reported today. They also fell in Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery and Delaware counties, with only Chester County seeing a modest increase, at 0.3 percent. The steepest wage declines, of 2.4 percent, were reported in Burlington and Philadelphia counties. The third quarter 2012 report, which compared wages to the third quarter of 2011, showed that Gloucester has the lowest weekly wage at $798, with wages at $893 in Camden and $949 in Burlington.

Ryan Bell knows that his best friend, fellow captain, and closest confidant will be 60 feet, 6 inches away. It's just a matter of whether David Viselli is behind the plate or atop the pitcher's mound. Either way, Bell says, the two Burlington Township High School baseball stars will see the game the same way. "It's almost like we're the same person," Bell said. "When he's pitching and I'm catching, he never shakes me off. When I'm pitching and he's catching, I never shake him off. "We're both into the game on every pitch.