Massachusetts

Singles victories in the last two matches by Marion McInerny, 1992 U.S. Mid-Amateur champion, enabled Massachusetts to win the 85th Griscom Cup women's golf series yesterday at Gulph Mills Golf Club. The New Englanders, last victorious in 1992, scored 24 match-play points; New York, defending titleholder, 21 1/2, and Philadelphia 17 1/2. GAP TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP Merion's eight players won the Team Championship of the Golf Association of Philadelphia with 21 1/2 points in 36 holes of match-play foursomes and singles on their East Course.

SOCIAL conservatives dispirited by their failed efforts to enact a constitutional amendment barring gay marriage should be cheered that their issues will be thrown into sharp relief at this week's Democratic convention in liberal New England, the nation's virtual epicenter of traditional family values. For nearly four years, the maritally upright have had to endure a vice president who hails from Wyoming, the state with the third highest divorce rate in the country (2001 figures)

Coach Jim Boyle's final regular-season game as coach of St. Joseph's was not one he will take great pains to remember. The flu-plagued Hawks fumbled their way to an 80-57 Atlantic 10 Conference loss to Massachusetts, a team they had beaten 11 days earlier, before 3,610 last night at Curry Hicks Cage. St. Joe's, which finished the regular season with three consecutive losses and an overall record of 7-20, matching last season's mark, was out of the game by halftime. The Hawks committed 19 of their season-high 32 turnovers before intermission and went into the locker room facing a 45-25 deficit.

During the week before the election, a woman of my intimate acquaintance appeared in the bathroom mirror, asking: "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" The place was a political location known as a quandary, located precisely halfway between a rock and a hard place. The rock was John Silber. The hard place was Bill Weld. The problem was whom to vote for as governor of Massachusetts. The governor's race here has bewildered outsiders who think of Massachusetts as the land of the liberal, the miracle and the Michael.

Penn State, which won the Atlantic 10 Conference Tournament last March, will compete as an independent this season before becoming a member of the Big 10 in 1992-93. Duquesne reportedly is giving serious consideration to joining the Midwestern Collegiate Conference. And the rumors continue to persist that at some point, Temple would prefer to switch its affiliation to the Big East. But on the court, at least, the oft-maligned A-10 never has been in better shape. A conference-record six teams received postseason invitations last March.

The last thing Markus Kennedy wanted to do was change schools for the fourth time in 4 years. But the highly touted 6-9, 260-pound Villanova recruit, who lives in Yeadon, Delaware County, has opted to go to Winchendon (Mass.) Prep. Kennedy, who committed to Villanova in April, found out that his school, Living Faith Christian Academy in Cherry Hill, had closed last month. That left him and his family scrambling to find a high school for his senior year. Kennedy was thinking strongly about attending Penn Wood, the defending PIAA Class AAAA state champions.

Drexel basketball received its third oral commitment for the freshman class of 2011-12, from Tavon Allen, a 6-7, 185-pound senior at Worcester (Mass.) Academy. Allen, who hails from New Haven, Conn., is expected to sign during the November early-signing period. Ranked among the top 200 high school players nationally by ESPN's "Rise," Allen is touted as an explosive player on the open floor and as an outside shooter. He shoots and passes with both hands and has improved his defense. - Kerith Gabriel

The last governor couldn't do it. The new governor appeared unable to do it. And the state's 200 legislators had all but given up. But thanks to the conscientious efforts of a low-ranking, part-time employee in the state's Department of Public Welfare, Massachusetts has its first balanced budget in three years. Kathleen Betts, 38, who earns $22,500 a year as a three-day-a-week department director, wrote a memo to her boss in February that she had found an obscure new federal regulation that she believed might qualify the state for more Medicaid assistance from Washington.

Question: I have a 1909 automobile license plate from Massachusetts, made by Ingrahm-Richardson Manufacturing Co. The letters and numbers are dark-blue enamel on a slightly chipped white-porcelain background. What's it worth? Answer: License plates like yours are fairly common and generally sell for under $50 each, according to collector Dave Lincoln, Box 331, Yorklyn, Del. 19736 (phone 215-444-4144). He said that in 1909 Massachusetts issued more than 20,000 matched pairs, one for front and rear.

Here's a look at attitudes and laws about gay marriage locally and around the country: State Sen. Daylin Leach, D-Delaware/Montgomery, and state Rep. Babette Josephs, D-Center City, proposed same-sex marriage bills in 2009, but both stalled in committee. Ultraconservative state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Butler County, proposed an amendment to the state Constitution last year to officially ban same-sex marriage, but that stalled as well. A recent Muhlenberg College/Morning Call poll showed that 52 percent of Pennsylvanians feel that gay marriage should be legal, while 37 percent believed it should not and 9 percent said they were unsure.

Veritable L.P., a Chester County investment firm that is among the largest of its kind in the nation, sold a majority stake to Affiliated Managers Group Inc., a Massachusetts firm with $338 billion under management through 27 boutique asset managers, including Friess Associates in Greenville, Del. The value of the investment was not disclosed. Veritable, which employs 85 and had $10.3 billion under management at the end of 2011 for 195 wealthy families, will continue operating out of its headquarters in a stone farmhouse in Willistown Township, founder Michael Stolper said Wednesday.

The Temple Owls are trying very hard to focus on this week and the opportunity that begins Friday night in their NCAA tournament opener in Nashville. It is the right thing to do, plus it beats the heck out of thinking about last week. "I got my phone call from [former Owls coach John] Chaney," Temple coach Fran Dunphy said before practice Monday. "He said, 'We're moving forward. Look ahead.' I will give the team that message today. " The day before, he gave them a slightly different message, making them sit through a viewing of their second-half debacle against Massachusetts in the Atlantic Ten quarterfinal round.

BOSTON - Republican Sen. Scott Brown drives a GMC pickup, while Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren has a hybrid Ford SUV. She rakes in Hollywood cash. He taps Wall Street. He calls her elitist. She brands him extremist. In what's shaping up as the costliest Senate race in Massachusetts history, at a projected $40 million, Brown, 52, and Warren, 62, are waging what Boston University mass-communication professor John Carroll calls "a war of imagery" to win votes. "She's trying to paint him as politically out of step," Carroll said, "and he's trying to paint her as culturally out of step.

Demitrius Conger had 22 points and 10 rebounds and St. Bonaventure advanced to the Atlantic Ten Conference championship game by holding off Massachusetts, 84-80, on Saturday afternoon in Atlantic City. Conference player of the year Andrew Nicholson added 19 points for the fourth-seeded Bonnies (19-11), who are now a win away from advancing to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2000. Massachusetts (22-11) rallied from a 16-point deficit with 7 minutes, 29 seconds to play and had a chance to take the lead in the closing seconds, only to see Raphiael Putney's high-arcing three-pointer hit off the side of the rim with less than two seconds to play.

Independence Blue Cross is joining with two other Blue Cross health insurers and a St. Louis software company to buy a Massachusetts firm that has what the buyers called the nation's largest real-time communication network for physicians, hospitals, and health insurers. The price for NaviNet Inc. of Boston in the deal scheduled to be announced Tuesday was not disclosed, but Independence Blue Cross executives said in interviews Monday the combined capabilities of NaviNet and Lumeris Corp., the St. Louis partner, would help ease the way to a more efficient health-care system.

Julian Kaminoff, a 5-foot-11, 180-pound safety for New Hope-Solebury, has switched his football commitment from Buffalo to Massachusetts. The Minutemen are moving up from the Football Championship Subdivision to the Football Bowl Subdivision in 2012. They will compete in the Mid-American Conference and play their home games at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. - Rick O'Brien

Just like at Trenton Catholic, Nola Henry doesn't have to score. She makes decisions. She creates opportunities. She leads her team. Henry was the point guard for a Trenton Catholic team that won the girls' basketball Tournament of Champions last season. Among her teammates were the most highly recruited and talented players in the country - especially Briyona Canty, a freshman standout at Rutgers. Now back at Willingboro, where she played her freshman year, Henry is again surrounded by scorers.

AMHERST, Mass. - St. Joseph's coach Phil Martelli thought something was missing in Saturday's game against Massachusetts - the look in the Hawks' eyes. That was evident in their 71-62 loss to UMass in an Atlantic Ten Conference game - one that saw the Hawks (12-6, 2-2 A-10) blow a 17-point first-half lead. "You've got to be tough to win on the road. . . . You've got to have a look in your eye," Martelli said of his team, which is 2-4 on the road. "Some of that look was there.

When: Saturday at 3:30 p.m., at McGuirk Stadium, Amherst, Mass. TV/Radio: TCN; ESPN-AM (950) Records: UMass, 5-3 overall, 3-2 Colonial Athletic Association; Villanova, 1-8, 0-6. Coaches: UMass, Kevin Morris (3d season, 16-14); Villanova, Andy Talley (27th season, 189-115-1). Series: UMass leads, 12-11-0. Last season, the Minutemen rallied to knock off Villanova in four overtimes, 32-24. THINGS TO WATCH In a snowy loss, Chris Polony showed improvement last week.