If double plays aren’t a pitcher s best friend, you would have had a hard time trying to convince Ephrata s hurlers of that on Monday. In three straight innings, with Warwick looking to build some momentum, the Mounts promptly shut the door by turning a twin killing. Finally, with Ephrata s defense doing its job to keep the score tied 4-4, the Mounts broke through for three runs in the top of the fifth and went on to earn an 11-4 win in a Section One-Two crossover game in Lititz, sending the Warriors to their first league loss of the season. Senior lefty Dusten Rutt settled in after yielding a four-spot in the first inning and picked up the win for Ephrata (4-1 Section Two, 5-1 overall), helping the Mounts bounce back from a tough 9-4 loss to Manheim Township last Friday. I thought the defense certainly did its part to hold the game in check and gave us enough time for the offense to come around when we needed it to, Ephrata skipper Adrian Shelley said. All I ask of all three parts of our game is to keep us in it long enough for something happen positively for us, and this is a real positive comeback from Friday s game.

Akronâ??s Rebecca Thatcher Murcia displays her newest published books. (Photo by Preston Whitcraft)

From Massachusetts to Mexico and Columbia to Pennsylvania, Akron author Rebecca Thatcher Murcia has experienced a variety of cultures. In the past decade, she’s used her interest in Latin America, soccer and famous individuals from history to become a regularly published author, including two recent titles, Que Se Siente al Ser Shakira, and Que Se Siente al Ser Marta (What It s Like to be Shakira and What It s Like to be Marta, respectively). The two books in Spanish are part of a series by Mitchell Lane Publishers, a group that produces books mainly for students, populating school libraries. I ve always utilized bilingual books for my kids; I raised them bilingual, said Murcia, also a well-known local youth soccer coach. She used to find mistakes in the Spanish books she read to her children, and wanted to help contribute to better reading material for them. The books on Shakira and Marta, a famous female soccer player, were professionally translated via the publishing company, based on the text Murcia wrote in English. I speak fluent Spanish, and can read and write it as well, but literary writing is different and needs to be very polished, Murcia said. She was glad to work with a translator to assure all of the details were correct. Murcia s career didn’t begin with writing books for a children’s audience; she first spent several years as a journalist. Beginning in Springville, Massachusetts, she then moved to Brownsville, Texas, which is further south than about a third of Mexico. The job in Brownsville required that I know Spanish, Murcia said. Though I excelled at Spanish courses in college, I was nowhere near fluent. When they asked if I could speak Spanish, I said yes, and got the job.

The Cocalico School District, working with PPL Electric Utilities, is making the grade when it comes to energy-efficient buildings. Reamstown and Denver elementary schools received ENERGY STAR status in 2010, as did Cocalico Middle School. The program is run by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The federal agency said about 6,200 commercial buildings across the country earned ENERGY STAR status in 2010, an increase of nearly 60 percent compared with 2009. Commercial buildings include 14 types of structures, such as schools, hospitals and office buildings. The EPA said more than 12,600 buildings have achieved ENERGY STAR status since the program started in 1999. The government said growth in the ENERGY STAR program now results in $1.9 billion in annual energy savings. This program is just one way PPL Electric Utilities partners with its education customers on energy efficiency, said Thomas C. Stathos, manager of customer programs and services for the utility. This is so much more than a plaque on the wall. They operate at a higher-than-normal standard of energy efficiency and that benefits everyone. That deserves praise.

The school district is among nearly two dozen in the PPL Electric Utilities service territory in eastern and central Pennsylvania that had buildings receive the ENERGY STAR designation last year.

Ephrata s Rachel Stauffer (left) and Kari Longstaff (11) of Cocalico square off Monday afternoon in Denver. (Photo by Preston Whitcraft)

Monday, the girls’ lacrosse game between Ephrata and Cocalico was a tale of two teams. One is a team continuously building itself into a section contender. The other is a team building for a strong run into the post-season

The Cocalico girls defeated Ephrata 15-3. The Lady Mounts netted three-straight goals in the second half, but the comeback wasn’t enough to stop the well-balanced strike and defense of the Lady Eagles. Ephrata s Katie Albright and Tina Bonomo scored on shots from free play and freshman Brooke Overly had the final goal of the contest. Cocalico came out of the gate storming. Senior Haley Mitchell put in the first goal of the contest less than a minute in. The Lady Eagles did not look back at that point scoring 10 straight goals going into the second half. They followed up in the second half scoring five goals on five shots after on-point downfield passing. Mitchell and junior Kari Longstaff combined for 10 goals and seven assists. Despite the wide margin in score, Ephrata showed resiliency and great speed throughout. We’ve been playing really well the past two games, said Mounts Coach Tara Walls on her players’ constant growth as a team. We have a lot of players coming from other sports. They are putting in the effort and are now dedicating themselves to the sport.

Adamstown Borough Council gave the green light to a number of motions last Tuesday having to do with a variety of issues some new, some old and one having to do with the future. The board discussed details surrounding a decision made at a special meeting March 29 by the council to accept the resignation of borough office manager Carolyn Friesema, effective April 15. Friesema will take the position of township manager in neighboring West Cocalico Township, replacing Norma Enck, who recently retired. For the past three years, Friesema has handled the accounting and administrative duties in Adamstown. Friesema said she will miss Adamstown, but saw the opening in West Cocalico as an opportunity to take a step up. Council president Dean Johnson said the borough has no plans to hire anyone anytime soon, so they approved a motion to have the borough s auditing firm, Reinsel & Company, handle accounting responsibilities. In an executive session after the April 5 meeting, council members discussed whether or not Friesema s position is one that can be scaled back to a part-time operation or remain a full-time job. Another topic of the evening was the approval of a plea made by Cocalico High School student Evan Hinkley. Hinkley appeared before the board to ask permission to make a few improvements to the entrance of the Grove as part of a Boy Scout project. He hopes to earn Eagle Scout rank by making some cosmetic changes to the area. In addition to the landscaping and cleaning Hinkley and his fellow Scouts will do, he will also being burying a time capsule at the location, which will coincide with Adamstown Days later this spring. Thanks to the help of local businesses, the project with be paid for by Hinkley and with funds from the borough s 250th Anniversary Fund. Also up for approval Tuesday was the borough s contribution to the Lancaster County Drug Task Force. Finance board chairman Cindy Schweitzer said the task force requested a $1-per-capita donation, which would total $1,772. Schweitzer said those numbers are up based on recently released 2010 U.S. Census figures. She suggested the board give $572 because that is what had been budgeted for the cause. Johnson asked East Cocalico Township Police Chief George Beever, who was in attendance, wether the borough would still receive services if council reduced its contribution. In a perfect world, if a municipality doesn’t contribute they would still get the same amount of attention from the task force, Beever said. We have a very good relationship with our task force and I believe this is a worthwhile unit.

Monday s warm weather produced a hotly contest boys tennis match as Ephrata traveled to Denver to take on cross-town rival Cocalico. Cocalico, winners of two straight contests coming in, prevailed 5-2 as they took three out of five in singles and later added wins in both doubles matches. With the victory, the Eagles remain in the thick of the Section One race. We have just two losses, and those are to the top two teams (Hempfield and Manheim Township), Cocalico Coach Todd Snyder said. Now we’re on a three-game winning streak and hopefully we can build on that. Asked if he’s pleased on his team’s progress thus far, Snyder added, I am very pleased considering we lost our number one player for the year (Jordan Vulopas), unfortunately because of an injury. One thing is for sure, our players will play their hearts out.

The search is over. Township supervisors made it official at their meeting last Thursday when they introduced Carolyn Friesema as the new manager of West Cocalico. Although new to the township, Friesema is no stranger to the area. For the past three years she has worked for Adamstown Borough as office manager. While I enjoyed my time (in Adamstown), I jumped at this opportunity to move to the next level, Friesema said. I was afraid that if I didn’t apply now, I might be waiting for another job like this to open up for a long while.

Supervisor chairman Jacque Smith said Friesema was chosen from a field of more than 45 applicants, some from as far away as California. In the end, he said, it was her local ties to the community, her previous experience and her friendly personality that won them over. Friesema will take over the position vacated by Norma Enck, who retired at the end of March after working for West Cocalico for 39 years. I know I have really big shoes to fill, Friesema said of Enck. Smith said he’s confidant Friesema is up to the challenge. Going from a borough to a township, there is a lot she will have to learn, but I m sure she’ll get the hang of it quickly, he said. In another matter, supervisors authorized a motion to place liens on the homes of 22 residents who have yet to pay their streetlight taxes. Together, the residents owe the township about $2,652 in 2010 delinquent bills. Township property owners are charged a street tax of $1.56 per front foot of property, with a maximum of 100 feet, or $156.

By a unanimous vote, Ephrata Borough Council approved the proposed plan to renovate the Ephrata Community Pool. Council members authorized Wade & Associates to prepare designs and specifications for the community pool project. According to preliminary cost projections prepared by Wade, the project is expected to cost $1.9 million. Questions were raised regarding funding of the project. We don’t intend to borrow for this, said interim borough manager Bob Thompson. We can do this with cash through the reserve fund that has been put aside in anticipation of this project.

Concerns about funding the project went beyond the cost of the project when citizens questioned if the new complex would be able to support itself. Recreation department manager David Lloyd, who was on hand for the meeting, indicated that the current pool was about 90 percent self-funding, but anticipated that a renovated facility might draw more patrons moving that number closer to 100 percent. Resident Jeff Simmons shared some of his impressions of the project with members of council. We were looking at a $4 million rebuild, said Simmons. This plan is much improved over what we saw before but still comes down to my basic question: If my initial impression was that the old facility was leaking water and that was the primary reason we were doing this. I feel the focus of this project should be aimed at older people and not the children. Should we be focusing our money on attracting older people and not the children, since that is the fastest growing segment of our population?