Phoenixville

As of Sunday night, the District 1 Class AA and A girls' soccer quarterfinals, scheduled for Monday, had not been postponed because of the storm. In Class A at Council Rock North, Christopher Dock meets Calvary Christian at 5 p.m. followed by New Hope-Solebury and Faith Christian. In Class AA at Souderton, Villa Joseph Marie meets Phoenixville at 5 p.m. followed by Marple Newtown against Gwynedd-Mercy. Check philly.com/rallyblog for updates. Bicentennial League League   Overall    W   L   W   L    Bristol.

Phoenixville received some unexpected help Saturday in its 40-19 victory over Pope John Paul II in Pioneer Athletic Conference football. Lineman Brian Hyland punched home two touchdowns out of the Phantoms' goal-line formation. "We've been using him as a blocker in short-yardage situations," coach Bill Furlong said. "There, we tried to catch them off guard. " Hyland, typically a two-way tackle, opened the scoring with a 1-yard touchdown run and made the score 26-0 in the third quarter with another 1-yarder.

Two overtimes were not enough to determine a winner as Cardinal O'Hara tied, 2-2, at Friends' Central in a nonleague girls' soccer match on Wednesday. Early in the second half, Carly Mirarchi found the net for the second time to give O'Hara a 2-0 lead. Emily Tedesco and Maria Pizzini rallied Friends' Central with goals in the 56th and 60th minutes. Both goalies stood out, with Carrie Zamonski making nine saves for the Lions and Caroline Fakharzadeh recording seven for Friends' Central.

Two overtimes were not enough to determine a winner as Cardinal O'Hara tied, 2-2, at Friends' Central in a nonleague girls' soccer match on Wednesday. Early in the second half, Carly Mirarchi found the net for the second time to give O'Hara a 2-0 lead. Emily Tedesco and Maria Pizzini rallied Friends' Central with goals in the 56th and 60th minutes. Both goalies stood out, with Carrie Zamonski making nine saves for the Lions and Caroline Fakharzadeh recording seven for Friends' Central.

If there is one thing Spring-Ford coach Chad Brubaker has learned in the last three seasons, it is that there are no mulligans in the Pioneer Athletic Conference. Every game counts. While many expect the league to be a toss-up between the Rams and Pottsgrove , Brubaker thinks the league will be much closer than some might imagine. He points to tight league wins for his squad late last season as proof of how competitive the PAC-10 has become. "If we said that," Brubaker said of the conference's being a battle between Spring-Ford and Pottsgrove, "we'd be selling some other teams short.

A Phoenixville manufacturer has been cited for 13 serious safety violations - violations that the company should have known could cause death or serious injury to workers. The charges and $55,000 fine levied against Danco Precision Inc. are part of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration's strategy to target its limited resources over the breadth of the nation's workplaces. "A lot of the violations deal with mechanical power presses and machine guarding for machinery that can cause amputations," said Albert D'Imperio, director of the U.S. Labor Department's OSHA office in Philadelphia.

If you're flying over Phoenixville on a weekday, or perhaps glancing at a satellite map of it, the gash is instantly visible: 120-plus acres of unused land flanked by a village of stores, rowhouses and quiet streets. Five years from now, business and community leaders hope, you will see something very different on the vacant land: apartments, specialty shops, offices and — perhaps most important — streets filled with pedestrians. Maybe even a minor-league baseball park. The gash is the former site of the Phoenix Steel Co., which closed in 1976 and set off a decline that turned the borough in northern Chester County into what local developer Manny DeMutis calls "a ghost town.

Raymond the Amish Comic said to look for him outside the Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville. A mop of shaggy hair. A long, graying beard that began at the jaw. And a Saab 900. "You weren't expecting a horse and buggy were you?" he asked. Raymond is 54, and in recovery after growing up Amish on a farm in Blue Ball, Lancaster County. His parents died when he was a boy. He was never baptized, "so I never signed the deal," he says. "I never took the oath. So I'm really not shunned.

With just five baptisms, one wedding and 373 worshipers at weekly Mass in 2010, the ecclesiastical writing was on the wall for Holy Trinity Church, which has served Polish parishioners in Phoenixville since 1903. On Sunday, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced that Holy Trinity would merge with the only slightly busier St. Mary of the Assumption across the street and founded in 1840. Two other Phoenixville churches, Sacred Heart, a Slovak church established in 1903, and St. Ann, which dates to 1905, will come together at St. Ann. In a news release on the closings, the Archdiocese said the "revitalized parishes" will be "better equipped to meet the spiritual and pastoral needs of future generations.

Four Phoenixville parishes — Holy Trinity, Saint Mary of the Assumption, Sacred Heart and Saint Ann — will merge into two effective July 1, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced Sunday. Archbishop Charles J. Chaput approved the mergers, as recommended by the Archdiocesan Strategic Planning Committee. It has been evaluating restructuring opportunities throughout the 267-parish archdiocese since 2011. "These mergers are the result of ongoing restructuring that will ultimately strengthen parish communities … positioning them for future growth and sustainability," the archdiocese said in a statement.