Roxborough

A 22-year-old man was killed in a car crash Monday afternoon in the city's Roxborough section, police said. The man, whose name was not released, was driving a Volkswagen at 1:34 p.m. when it struck a curb, swerved into oncoming traffic, and struck another vehicle in the 6000 block of Henry Avenue, police said. The driver of the Volkswagen was transported to Temple University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 2:10 p.m. The driver of the other vehicle suffered minor cuts and bruises.

For the first time since 1985, the Washington Eagles will not be the Public League baseball championship game. On Monday afternoon at Central High, with two outs in the top of the seventh inning, Washington watched a 5-4 lead over Roxborough, and its hopes for a fifth straight title, disappear. "It hurts," Washington coach Joe O'Hara said after Roxborough rallied for a 7-5 semifinal victory. "There's no question it hurts. But to a certain extent, I'm relieved because now we can start all over.

It's been 10 years and lots of letters, but still no final answer as to whether 202 apartments will be built in Roxborough. Residents and developers have yet to meet, and the planning board won't make a decision until they do. Each side blames the other. "I have never had a problem with meeting with a community," said Carl Primavera, an attorney for the Andorra Group, which wants to build six apartment buildings at Umbria Street and Shawmont Avenue. "Usually they are anxious to hear us and anxious to give input.

If Larry Kolongowski's latest pitching performance was listed as a lunchtime item at a nearby deli, it would probably be a roast beef sandwich on rye bread. Make that month-old rye. After the senior righthander got much-needed last-out relief from teammate Ken Mulderrig to preserve Washington's 7-4 win over visiting Roxborough (4-3 league) on Monday, all Kolongowski wanted to remember about his outing were innings two through six. Throw away the first and seventh and you're left with some quality filler.

Gerald "Scotty" Mack left yesterday's Public League Division B showdown at Central with less uniform than he started with, but the Roxborough running back never looked better. The 5-foot-7, 155-pound senior rushed for 232 yards and two touchdowns as Roxborough clinched a playoff berth with a 29-0 thrashing of the Lancers. The victory puts Roxborough (6-2 overall, 4-1 league) into a quarterfinal game at Martin Luther King, the Division C champion, on Friday. Mack began the day with three blue letters (M-A-C)

When Roxborough Memorial Hospital was sold to Tenet Healthcare Corp. 19 months ago for $23 million, hospital officials hoped they had assured the 115-bed institution's future and raised enough money to pay off its debts. But now the nonprofit organization that got the $23 million in the sale, known as Memorial Hospital, Roxborough, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Philadelphia, and hospital creditors do not expect to collect all they are owed. And while Tenet continues to operate the hospital, the for-profit hospital company is struggling under government investigations into its billing practices and numerous lawsuits.

The Public League baseball schedule-maker was not exactly kind to Mike Miller's right arm. Humane, yes. But not kind. Before yesterday, when Roxborough bested Central, 12-5, in a semifinal at Northeast, Miller had pitched four innings in the 17 previous days. No wonder he had trouble finding a groove. No wonder his five-inning stint was largely lackluster. "Our last regular-season game, against Edison, was so long ago (May 21)," said Miller, a 6-1, 165-pound senior righthander and Temple signee.

After last week's loss to La Salle in the Catholic League Red Division semifinals, Roman Catholic was determined to avoid similar frustration in yesterday's Thanksgiving Day clash with Roxborough. Troy Richardson did his part, catching seven passes for 138 yards and two touchdowns as the Cahillites defeated the host Indians, 19-6, on a muddy and puddle-filled field. "We really wanted to end the season on a good note," said Richardson, a senior wide receiver and cornerback.

Roxborough, with its 4-3 defeat of Washington on Monday afternoon, won its second consecutive Public League baseball title, but what Washington shortstop Tom Honda won at the Frankford site of the game was respect. In the bottom of the seventh inning, with the Indians up by a run and Ray Barnhart - representing the tying run - on second base, Roxborough coach Cliff Hubbard did the unthinkable. He instructed pitcher Mike Miller to walk Honda. Intentionally. This decision put the winning run on first and placed the bat in the hands of Jeff Strunk.

The first thing Jason Russ couldn't believe was that Frankford High's baseball fans were continuing to razz him. The next thing he couldn't believe was how successfully he forced those fans to cease their noisemaking. Russ, a senior and lefthanded batter, plays first base for Roxborough. In the seventh inning yesterday, after Sean Gray singled, Russ smashed a two-run homer over the rightfield fence and out onto Large Street (and off a house on one bounce) to give the visiting Indians a 4-2 victory in an entertaining Public League quarterfinal.

Dougie Williams expected the avalanche and, man, did he get it. We're not talking runs for the opposition. We're talking the variety that features bodies of teammates, who have just exploded off the bench, or run in from their positions, to pummel you to the ground because you've just pitched your baseball squad to a surprising victory. On second thought, surprising doesn't quite cut it. Let's go with shocking. The Public League groups its baseball divisions by teams' supposed ability, and Engineering and Science finished tied for fifth in C at 6-5. Friday, for a Class AAA quarterfinal, that meant the Engineers had to travel to the upper reaches of Roxborough, the area, to meet Roxborough, the school, which had earned a tie for second in B at 8-2. E&S triumphed, 7-5, which was why Williams, a 5-10, 155-pound senior lefthander, was rushed by ecstatic Engineers moments after recording a game-ending strikeout.

Kay Sykora had lived in Manayunk and Roxborough since 1973, raising her children there and renovating several houses. Over 39 years, she helped found the Manayunk Development Corp., where she spent 16 years as executive director. She loved the area's history and charm. Frank Meis spent four decades in a classic Colonial in Lafayette Hill, raising a family there with his then-wife. When he and Sykora decided to marry in 2008, they looked for a place that was "theirs. " She was smitten with the hill towns, and he warmed to the idea of city living, but with one caveat: He wanted a driveway.

Wood-fired oven by wood-fired oven, the city's pizza scene is heating up. When American-raised Antimo DiMeo, 20, expressed interest in following his Neapolitan-born father, Pino, 43, in the pizza business, the son insisted he wanted to cook in the old-country way, with a wood-fired oven. (Pino's parlors use conventional gas ovens.) Then the father and son said they performed a taste test at their parlor in downtown Wilmington: They made batches of dough with Wilmington tap water and with bottled water from Naples.

JOHN MANTON offers me a bowl of potato soup as I take a seat in his tight Roxborough home. He's made a pot that will last for a week. It must. Manton's learned to stretch his food, a frugality demanded by the $37.25 worth of food stamps he receives weekly. He supplements that small amount with $20 from his meager savings. Through no fault of his own, Manton's been unemployed for a year, and Gov. Corbett wants to snoop into his bank account before approving the food stamps that keep Manton from starving.

Pennsylvania State Sen. Shirley M. Kitchen (D., Philadelphia) lashed out at the new owner of Roxborough Memorial Hospital in a letter to the director of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, urging Eli Avila to help stop Prime Healthcare Services from taking over the 140-bed facility. Based in Ontario, Calif., Prime Healthcare is reportedly under investigation by federal authorities over aggressive Medicare reimbursement requests, though a company spokesman denies such reports.

The president and chief executive of Prime Healthcare Services, the California company that bought Roxborough Memorial Hospital this week for an undisclosed price, has resigned, the company announced Thursday. Prime Healthcare, which had already owned or managed 14 hospitals in California and one in Texas, has been operating under a cloud of allegations - brought by a labor union it has feuded with for at least five years - that it was improperly billing Medicare for certain infections and other conditions.

A fast-growing California hospital chain has purchased Roxborough Memorial Hospital in Philadelphia, giving the 137-bed institution its third owner since 2002. Prime Healthcare Services, of Ontario, Calif., near Los Angeles, said Wednesday that it bought the hospital from Solis Healthcare L.L.C. but did not say what it paid. Prime Healthcare, a for-profit company founded in 2001 by its chairman, Prem Reddy, a cardiologist, already owned or managed 15 hospitals, 14 in California and one in Texas.