Long Branch

Cinnaminson coach Mike Beirao has no doubts about who will win the Central Jersey Group 2 wrestling title. The NJSIAA group team tournament is scheduled to start Monday, with semifinals Wednesday and finals Friday at the higher seeds, all at 7 p.m. The top two seeds will sit out the first round. Beirao, Cinnaminson's first-year head coach, surveyed a field that includes his fifth-seeded Pirates vs. No. 4 Burlington Township, No. 6 Hopewell Valley vs. No. 3 Delran, No. 2 Raritan and No. 1 Long Branch.

The violent disturbances that caused the boys' basketball playoff game between Camden and Long Branch to be halted Wednesday night with 63 seconds remaining will be investigated by the NJSIAA, executive director Boyd Sands said yesterday. Long Branch had a 58-47 lead in the Group 3 state semifinal at Brick Memorial High when fights erupted among some players and fans. Play was stopped as police, who arrested two fans from Long Branch, used dogs and pepper spray to control the crowd.

Criminal defendants are entitled to a "speedy trial" - a clock that usually runs out at 70 days in the federal system. It's more likely, however, that the process will take about a year. Today marks 1,829 days (more than five years) that brothers David, 46, and Stephen Schulz, 39, of Long Branch, Monmouth County, have been held in prison on drug charges without bail and without going to trial. Their relatives said the brothers had been railroaded. Authorities said the delay was the defendants' own doing.

A game that was physical on the floor spilled into the stands, so Camden's state Group 3 boys' basketball semifinal was called with 63 seconds left to play and Long Branch declared a 58-47 winner at Brick Memorial High last night. Instead of celebrating with shouts of joy and hugs, Long Branch players ran to the locker room as fights broke out close to the Camden bench in stands filled mostly with Green Wave fans. Police brought in dogs and sprayed pepper spray to control the crowd, estimated at 2,000, and at least two arrests were made.

It has all the earmarks of a dime novel or its modern-day equivalent, the made-for-TV mystery. On a winter day, the clothing and personal effects of a woman are found on a beach along with a suicide note. Police investigate but find no body. The woman's daughter later cashes in two life insurance policies for more than $300,000. Then, 10 months after she disappeared, the woman walks into a New York hospital, reportedly suffering from amnesia. And the money is all gone. But this plot line is of an actual case that is unfolding in Monmouth County and this week prompted an investigator to go to Canada looking for clues.

Maria Montalvo was the quintessential super-mom, friends say. The 29-year-old registered nurse often worked 60 to 80 hours a week, at two and sometimes three jobs, to support her four children. She helped out on bingo nights at the Catholic school her two older children attended. She was getting ready to move to a nicer neighborhood. And she always made sure the kids wore seat belts. Even on the morning last week when she drove her two youngest children - Rafael Aponte, 28 months, and Zoraida Aponte, 16 months - from her Union Beach home to her in-laws' house 14 miles away in Long Branch.

Security will be beefed up at the New Jersey Marathon next month at the Shore, and all bags will be banned for spectators at the start and finish lines, because of the Boston Marathon bombings, organizers said Friday. "If you need something, it needs to go in your pocket," executive race director Joe Gigas said. The only bags allowed will be clear ones for clothing issued to runners by race organizers. Those bags will be checked by bomb-sniffing dogs when they are transported from start to finish lines.

Alice Bennett Dunnington, 87, a former U.S. intelligence official and one- time committee member of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, died Monday at the Beaumont retirement home in Bryn Mawr. A former longtime resident of Southampton, N.Y., she had moved to Bryn Mawr from Lima, Peru, in 1989 to be near one of her daughters. Born in Long Branch, N.J., Mrs. Dunnington grew up in Brooklyn and graduated from Smith College in 1925. Her subsequent marriage to George Pynchon Jr. ended in divorce.

Using a teenager's arm as their perch, a group of hungry lorikeets moves in for a nibble at the Philadelphia Zoo. Jason Miller, 14, of Long Branch, N.J., found himself decorated by the Australian parrots yesterday when he approached with some nectar. About 100 birds occupy the popular exhibit, which is in its second year and runs from April through October.

During the Gilded Age of the 19th century, presidents and high society spent the summer at this Shore resort. And when they knelt together in prayer, they went to St. James Chapel, erected in the midst of their mansions and luxury hotels by George Pullman, of railroad car fame, and two Philadelphians: Anthony J. Drexel, the banker and college founder, and George W. Childs, powerful publisher of the Philadelphia Public Ledger. The big homes are gone, but the chapel remains, a near ruin that a small but dedicated group of preservationists hopes to restore as the last link to seven presidents who made Long Branch the summer capital between 1869 and 1917.

SUNDAY Seventh annual Richard's River Run 5K, 9 a.m. at Cooper River Park, Pennsauken. Go4theGoal will host.   Long Branch Half Marathon, Long Branch, N.J. njmarathon.org   Bucks County 10-miler, Washington Crossing. runbucks.com SATURDAY Rock N' Run 4 Kids, 5K & kids fun run. Coca-Cola Park, Allentown. rocknrun4kids.com Elwyn 5K, on Elwyn's campus, 111 Elwyn Rd., Elwyn 9 a.m. 610-891-2298. 34th Great Cape May Footrace, Beach Ave. & Stockton Place, 8 a.m. active.com NEXT SUNDAY 23d annual Komen Philadelphia Race for the Cure, at Eakins Oval/Philadelphia Museum of Art. 5K, 8:15 a.m. Information and registration: komenphiladelphia.org MAY 18 Fallen Heroes 5k Run and 1-mile family walk.

Security will be beefed up at the New Jersey Marathon next month at the Shore, and all bags will be banned for spectators at the start and finish lines, because of the Boston Marathon bombings, organizers said Friday. "If you need something, it needs to go in your pocket," executive race director Joe Gigas said. The only bags allowed will be clear ones for clothing issued to runners by race organizers. Those bags will be checked by bomb-sniffing dogs when they are transported from start to finish lines.

OCEAN CITY, N.J. - Whether they're just grinding their toes a few inches into the sand or carving out deep holes that look like moon craters by day's end, beachgoers seem to have an innate need to dig. Beach patrols along the Jersey Shore are reconsidering limits on that digging since 12-year-old Ezra Cornman, of Brooklyn, N.Y., died Wednesday in a Monmouth County hospital the day after he was trapped under the sand when a tunnel he was digging on...

Baseball CAPE-ATLANTIC LEAGUE Oakcrest 000 010 00 - 1 8 0 Ocean City 100 000 01 - 2 8 0 WP: Beau Hall. LP: Carberry. 2B: O-Ryan Ellison. 3B: OC-Robbie Zauck. Notes: Ocean City clinched American Conference Division II championship. Kolya Stephenson RBI 1B with bases loaded scored Conner Briggs in 8th inn. Boys' Tennis COLONIAL CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS Doubles final: Ty Simcox and Luke Grabiak, Haddonfield, def. Ian Roberts and Sean Campbell, Haddonfield, 6-3, 6-4. Track and Field NJSIAA MEET OF CHAMPIONS 100 meters: 1, Miles Shuler-Foster, Long Branch, 10.39.

SOUTH PLAINFIELD, N.J. - The time was terrific. The place was something else for Damiere Byrd. The Timber Creek junior ran the fastest 100 meters of his life at Thursday night's Meet of Champions. He blazed to a time of 10.42 seconds. But Byrd was determined to win the race and earn the title as the fastest boy in New Jersey. He finished second to Long Branch junior Miles Shuler-Foster, whose blistering time of 10.39 seconds was the fastest in the event since Camden's Jamar Ervin ran 10.35 in 2000.

Winning the South Jersey Group 1 title was one thing. Winning the state Group 1 title was another. But Glassboro's Ryan Chance took on the entire state last night and emerged as the best triple jumper in New Jersey. With a clutch leap on his final attempt, Chance won the triple jump at the boys' Meet of Champions track and field competition at Frank Jost Field at South Plainfield High School. "I'm spreading the news," said Chance, a senior. Egg Harbor Township junior Tejay Johnson won the 100 meters, edging Glassboro's James Brown in a photo finish.

Cinnaminson coach Mike Beirao has no doubts about who will win the Central Jersey Group 2 wrestling title. The NJSIAA group team tournament is scheduled to start Monday, with semifinals Wednesday and finals Friday at the higher seeds, all at 7 p.m. The top two seeds will sit out the first round. Beirao, Cinnaminson's first-year head coach, surveyed a field that includes his fifth-seeded Pirates vs. No. 4 Burlington Township, No. 6 Hopewell Valley vs. No. 3 Delran, No. 2 Raritan and No. 1 Long Branch.

Moorestown's Bryan Burnham loves playing wide receiver more than any other position. Loves running routes. Loves putting a move on a defender and picking up extra yards after a catch. He also says that being a receiver has made him a better defensive back. "I know all the tricks that receivers have," Burnham said, smiling. "It helps me read them pretty easily. " Maybe that explains how Burnham hauled in 11 interceptions - including two that he returned for touchdowns - and helped Moorestown to a historic 12-0 season.