Both coaches assuredly had the contest circled when the schedule was released in April. But following Salem’s 2-0 win over Concord on Monday, May 5, Blue Devil mentor Harold Sachs and Concord’s Duke Sawyer could only agree on these two points: neither team is playing at a championship level – yet – and the race for the Class L crown is wide open.

“Both (teams) have a legitimate chance to do some damage in the tournament, along with about eight other teams,” said Sachs. “If you notice the amount of teams in the league that can beat anybody on any day ... Teams in our league can come out of the (No.) 16 spot and win a state championship. You’ve just got to get there.”

“(Salem’s) good enough,” said Sawyer. “No, they’re not as strong as they have been in the last few years, but they’re a contender, there’s no doubt about it. I think Londonderry, Timberlane and Salem, those are by far the best teams, and then we’re probably in the next group of four or five teams, but those top three are going to be tough to beat.”

Concord had its chances against Salem.

The contest’s lone runs came in the bottom of the fourth inning when Concord’s ace, Paige Hansen, allowed a Jen Cabral two-out single before walking Megan St. Pierre and Amanda Vaudreuil.

Senior Katie Bettencourt, Salem’s hottest hitter, stepped to the plate and delivered a bases-loaded single for the game’s only two RBI.

“That was our big sin right there. We loaded the bases, and we knew that their best hitter was coming up, and that was the ball game right there,” said Sawyer. “They’re a better team than we are. We’re not quite there yet. We make too many mistakes out there. We’ve got to adjust better. We’ve got to grow up a little bit.”

Salem senior Erin Lyons, who struck out five batters while holding Concord to three hits and no runs, became Salem’s third three-win pitcher.

While 7-4 Concord has understandably relied on Hansen’s steady arm throughout the season, Sachs said his 9-3 squad has had to depend on Lyons, Dominique Heres and Stephanie Cabral. Its stopper, Alexandra Gallant, has missed the first half of the season.

“I think Alex will be back Friday (May 9, against Spaulding), but … we want a little more consistency in how we play, especially on the defensive side of the ball, and I think we did that today,” said Sachs. “I also think our at-bats, even though we only scored two runs – against a pitcher like Paige Hansen, I think we did a great job. And I think each kid up and down the lineup fought about as hard as you can ask kids to do, so that was encouraging.”

Still, Sachs said there are kinks to be worked out.

“Any problems that we’ve had in terms of our ability to win is squarely on my shoulders,” said Sachs. “We believe we have a quality team, and we know we’re going to get enough wins to get into the tournament ... It doesn’t really matter to us where we finish as long as we get in … but I’ve just got to do a better job of figuring out where people belong. So it’s really not as much about them as it is my indecisiveness.”

After performing alcohol compliance checks over the weekend of May 3, Salem police think businesses might be getting smart to their practices – either in not serving minors or in communicating with each other to slip under the radar.

Only two summonses were issued in compliance checks of 67 Salem businesses, in which a minor is sent into alcohol-selling establishments to attempt to buy alcohol.

“That’s the least we’ve ever had,” said Salem police Capt. Bill Teuber.

Simon Najjar, 50, of Salem, a bartender at Rosie’s Place on North Broadway in town, was summonsed to court for prohibited sales.

Also charged was Phillip Lynch of Lawrence, Mass., 17, a cashier at the Shaw’s Supermarket on Cluff Crossing Road.

The individual who goes undercover in these checks, a different person each time, is always a person under 21 who’s appearance would obviously be questionable to any employee looking for indications that the person is under 21.

The individual also presents his or her own identification, if asked by the seller.

Teuber said the department conducts these checks, often with the help of the state Liquor Commission, about three or four times a year.

In a media release on the compliance checks, Salem police Capt. Shawn Patten said establishments have gotten smart about the checks and have apparently banded together.

“Unfortunately, we have been made aware that there appears to be an underground information sharing network. When businesses start getting checked, a flurry of phones calls are made to give other businesses a heads up that a sting is being conducted,” Patten wrote in the statement.

“In order to address this, we will be modifying our enforcement techniques in future stings. We do hope that businesses are truly committed to preventing underage sales, and these improved results are the effect of that commitment and not due to advanced warnings during sting operations,” Patten said.

The Police Department’s prosecuting ability extends only to the individual who sold the alcohol, not to the establishment. Individuals found guilty of prohibited sales face fines for the first offense plus any disciplinary action taken by the establishment.

Salem Police, when conducting the checks on their own as they did this time around, notify the liquor commission of what establishments failed the compliance checks. Businesses are disciplined through the commission in the form of fines or license status modifications.

Both Najjar and Lynch will appear in Salem District Court on June 2 to answer to their charges.

BY DARRELL HALEN 

When Lorraine Moore, dressed as Pocahontas, finished singing along to the song “Colors of the Wind,” the audience watching her cheered and applauded loudly. Lorraine smiled and bowed.

Her performance was part of “A Disney Afternoon,” when nearly 50 performers donned colorful costumes and sang uplifting songs. Against the backdrop image of a castle on a hill, they appeared as some of Disney’s most beloved characters, including the Seven Dwarves, Pinocchio and Winnie the Pooh.

The evening show, held Friday, April 25, in Salem High School’s Seifert Auditorium, was presented by Play Among the Stars, a theater group that gives developmentally disabled people the opportunity to broaden their dance and music abilities and develop other skills.

“It’s awesome to see them up on stage,” said Carol O’Donnell of North Andover, Mass., who attended the show with her daughter. “They love it. They’re stars. I’ve just been amazed watching them.”

The two-act show featured 29 performances, including music from the movies “The Lion King” and “Beauty and the Beast,” and uplifting songs such as “Zip-A-Dee-Do-Dah” and “Let’s Go Fly a Kite.”

Throughout the show, proud friends and family members smiled and took photos. They cheered when Bethany Zinka, playing the role of Cinderella, appeared in a glittery blue gown. They clapped along as one of the performers sang “A Spoonful of Sugar.” And they waved small flags to the song “It’s a Small World.”

One of the performers, Donna Buck, was presented the Shining Star Award in recognition of her determination, courage, personal growth and love for others. Last year’s recipient, Ryan Gallagher, kicked off the show by singing “The Star Spangled Banner.”

Former Salem resident Sara Brown founded the theater group with Charlene Westerdale, and the first show was performed in 1999. The group, which serves about 18 communities in Southern New Hampshire and the Merrimack Valley, presents two shows annually.

Brown’s inspiration is her son, Jason, 34, who is mentally retarded and has cerebral palsy. He loves to sing and dance, and be with his friends.

“I couldn’t think of a better way to keep them all together,” said Brown, the group’s president, who commutes from her Scarborough, Maine, home to help other volunteers to get the shows ready.

Performing in front of an audience boosts the self-confidence of its participants, and gives them the sense of being involved in the community, she said.

“The nice thing is, they can be anything they want to be,” Brown said.

Brown has other hopes for the group. She would like to build a fitness center in Salem where members can socialize and learn about personal health and hygiene. The center would also provide space to store costumes and hold rehearsals.

To be competitive this season, Curt Killion knew his Salem girls tennis squad had to win at the bottom of the ladder and then sneak another victory somewhere in the middle sets.

“Basically we needed to win our (No.) 5 and 6 matches and also win our (No.) 2 and 3 doubles and then hope for another win from our (No.) 3 or 4 (singles),” said Killion.

So far, the script has played out nearly exactly as rehearsed.

The Lady Blue Devils are 4- 2 this season, and three of their victories – against Timberlane, Merrimack and Alvirne – came via 5-4 decisions.

Both a blessing and a curse, Killion said there is little clear separation between his No. 1 player and his No. 9. So while Salem’s deserved No. 1 and No. 2 players, Angela Rullo and Danaka Blakslee, respectively, struggle against the top players from other teams, its rotating No. 5 and 6 slots, manned by Caitlin Peters, Fay Long, Breanna Edelstein, Christie Hutchings and Andrea Vinci, take the victories.

Peters, for instance, is 4-0 this season. Nicole Antonelli, at No. 3, and Julianna Blaisdell, at No. 4, have produced mixed results thus far, but they have provided what Killon considers the deciding victory in three contests.

The same applies to doubles matches. The Lady Blue Devils’ top team of Rullo and Vinci has fallen to some of the best tandems in the state, while the No. 2 and 3 teams have found regular success. In fact, the second unit of Blakslee and Antonelli is undefeated in six matches this season.

Peters anchors the No. 3 team, and Killion said he is still working on finding her a regular partner, though Long may be taking the decision out of her coach’s hands; she and Peters are 3-0 together.

Still, while the bottom of the ladder is having great success, Killion admitted it has been a challenge keeping those at the top motivated.

“They’re definitely getting a little discouraged, but I just have to keep reminding them to look at the bigger picture and go out there and try to have fun with it,” he said. “It’s definitely wearing on them a little, though.”

In addition to Salem’s three one-point decisions, it also played in two contests that weren’t close – a 7-2 loss at Manchester West and a 7-2 victory against Manchester Memorial.

Because his team is likely to fall to the Class L elite and beat up on cellar dwellers, it’s the tight match-ups Killion said Salem must win for the playoffs to become a reality.

A .500 record is realistic, but it’s likely an 8-6 record is needed to reach the post season, said Killion. That’s why dropping a recent 5-4 decision to Nashua South hurts.

“The way I look at it, we’re a point or two away from being 5-1, but at the same time we’re only a few points away from being 1-5,” said Killion. “We were 2-12 last year, so I’m happy to be competitive again right now, but we’re playing what I think are the top four teams in the state this year, so we really need to win those close matches.

“That one match (against South), could very well end up making the difference.”

Planners will meet next week to review traffic impact plans for a new Lowe’s location at the state line of Route 28.

The Stateline Shopping Center straddling the Salem- Methuen, Mass., border, is presenting a plan for a 200,000- square-foot building to house the large-scale home improvement store at the already busy point along Route 28.

“That’s a pretty big project by any definition in Salem,” Town Planning Director Ross Moldoff said, citing that only a handful of locations would be larger in town.

The plaza location, home to AAMCO and Staples, is located just south of the often gridlocked intersection of Lawrence Road and Hampshire Street.

The Planning Board meeting scheduled for Tuesday, April 29, is to specifically address R. J. O’Connell & Associates’ submitted plans for the shopping center, Moldoff said.

“They haven’t submitted their full set of plans, but this has been in the works for some time,” Moldoff said. “The Planning Board has really pushed them to come up with a plan that would address the added traffic to the area.”

Since the parking lot of the proposed site rests almost entirely in Methuen, Mass., the developers have had to seek planning approval from the other town, Moldoff said.

Added pedestrian accommodations, turning lanes and changes to the location of plaza entrances and exits are planned to increase space between traffic lights in the area and allow increased flow of traffic, according to proposal documents submitted to the planning office.

As part of the traffic impact requirements to the project, Moldoff said the developers have submitted an application that would include $2 million of traffic improvements to the area.

“They’re going to widen the road, relocate a traffic signal and update them for synchronization,” he said.

Grateful for the medical treatment his young son received when he battled cancer, and with a desire to help families dealing with the disease, Dane Hoover Jr. will soon endure the challenge of running the 26.2-mile Boston Marathon.

He’s raising money through his participation in the race to help fund cancer research. It’s a cause that’s personal to him: His oldest child, Dane III, survived stage 4 neuroblastoma, a rare cancer, which was diagnosed when he was only 2.

Dane, who underwent five rounds of chemotherapy, two rounds of radiation and two bone marrow transplants, has been cancer-free for about eight years. Hoover credits Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston with saving his son’s life.

Hoover will participate in the marathon, which takes place Monday, April 21, as a member of the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge team. They’re a group of runners raising money to benefit the Claudia Adams Program in Innovative Basic Cancer Research at Dana-Farber.

“I’ll make it to the end, hopefully, and raise money for a good cause,” said Hoover, 39, who is running his first marathon. “It would be a great accomplishment.”

Hoover was inspired to sign up by a friend who participates in marathons and by a counselor who worked at a camp for cancer-stricken kids who runs in honor of a boy who died of cancer.

The DFMC, now in its 19th year, seeks to raise $4.5 million for Barr Program initiatives to better understand, treat and ultimately cure cancer.

So far, Hoover has raised about one-third of his $10,000 goal. Donations have come in from friends, strangers, people who have treated his son, and fellow Salem Rotarians. “I think it’s great that he’s doing it,” said Dane, now 10, a Soule School fourth-grader. “He’s doing it for cancer kids.”

Hoover has been training for almost five months. His business and family responsibilities require him to often train early in the morning or late at night. But the hard work has paid off. He’s shed about 20 pounds and has seen drops in his cholesterol and blood-pressure levels. “It’s a lifestyle change at the same time,” he said.

Hit hard financially and emotionally after his son was diagnosed with cancer – “I lost everything,” he said – Hoover now helps other families who have a cancer-stricken child.

He is a board member and volunteer counselor for Childhood Cancer Lifeline of New Hampshire, an organization that helps families dealing with pediatric cancer.

“When you go through cancer, it’s a horrible, tough situation,” said Hoover. “I want to give (families) the best chance to get through it.”

Hoover will run in Dane’s honor and in memory of Grace Oughton, a Virginia girl whose family stayed at Hoover’s home for two-and-a-half months while she was being treated for neuroblastomo at Dana-Farber. Grace went into remission but died last October at the age of 3, following a relapse.

One supporter who is opening his checkbook to support Hoover’s cause is Mike Antonietti, whose son, Peter, is best friends with Dane.

Antonietti has pledged $10 for every mile Hoover completes. He knows the money will support important medical work at Dana-Farber.

“It gives him an incentive to finish the race, which I know he’ll do,” Antonietti said of his pledge. “The story of his son is a compelling one. He’s a great little kid. It’s a miracle what they were able to do in his case, and it’s a great cause.”

Selectmen voted to create a charter reform committee but plans for the panel have yet to be nailed down.

In a unanimous vote on Monday, April 14, selectmen approved a proposal by Selectman Michael Lyons to create a seven- person panel to investigate the town’s governing charter while assessing other possible options.

Four seats of the committee will be made up of representatives of the Board of Selectmen, the Budget Committee, the School Board and the Capital Improvement Plan Committee. Selectmen will appoint three citizens who are not currently serving on other major boards or committees to make up the remaining spots on the panel, selectmen said.

While the charter committee was originally proposed to have only five members with one citizen- at-large position, the number was boosted to assist in the large task of researching the town’s government to recommend improvements. The only decision put off by selectmen were the definitive directions in three areas where the Charter Reform Committee would investigate.

The first may be to correct the questioned status of the Municipal Budget Committee, which Town Manager Jonathan Sistare said may not be sanctioned under the state statute that provides Salem’s charter.

Sistare said he was awaiting further direction from the state Deptartment of Revenue Administration for recommendation on the Budget Committee clarification and any suggested areas to improve the charter.

The second purpose, supported by Lyons, is to lower the bond approval threshold from two-thirds to a three-fifths majority. Lyons said he would not hide his intentions to help the town address needed capital improvements and infrastructure demands. “We have serious infrastructure problems that we are not addressing. I’ll make no bones about it,” Lyons said.

In four years, two police station bond articles and a bond article for town-wide bridge repairs were rejected by voters because majority approval did not reach 67 percent.

Selectmen may also direct the charter reform committee to consider the presentation of formally elected charter commission that may take the town’s government in any direction.

Patrick McDougall, of 11 Tiffany Road, pleaded to selectmen to not direct the town to a city form of government.

A former resident of Methuen, Mass., McDougall said he moved to Salem five years ago to live in a town where voters had a greater say in the government.

“If this town becomes a city, I will pack up my things and move my family out of town and will encourage others to do so,” he said.

Final directions for the charter committee are to be determined at the board’s next meeting on April 28.

Edward Kruczinski and his family had a hard time finding a place to live since the mortgage on their Allenstown home was foreclosed on the day after Christmas in 2006.

While Kruczinski, his wife, Carolyn, and their three teenage daughters finally relocated to one side of a duplex in town, the foreclosure ruined their credit score, and it’s been an uphill battle since then, he said.

Kruczinski, 50, works for the state and has a second job at Wal-Mart. While his wife doesn’t work because of medical issues, he said, his income is more than enough to support a rent payment. Nonetheless, the family had a hard time finding a landlord who would look past their credit.

“To me it’s more important that people renting have an ability to pay, not something based on their past credit issues,” Kruczinski said.

As the number of foreclosures across the state – and the nation – continues to climb, there will likely be many more families facing the housing crunch as they compete with others who may earn the same income, but don’t have the black mark of a foreclosure on their credit records.

In Kruczinski’s case, rising property values due to new development in the area, an increase in their homeowner’s insurance and the skyrocketing cost of heating oil combined in a perfect storm.

“Basically, it became too expensive for us to live there,” Kruczinski said.

The crunch felt around the state – and the country

Most of the foreclosures across the state and the country evolved from high-interest subprime adjustable-rate mortgages, which boomed in the past few years and placed people into dream homes at unrealistic financing, according to Peter Hildreth, commissioner of the New Hampshire Banking Department.

“People go into the closings and all they see is the monthly payment they’re going to have next month,” Hildreth said. “People were buying houses that they really couldn’t afford.”

Now the effects of purchasing such homes are blanketing the country. According to RealtyTrac, publisher of the Registry Review, a weekly real estate and financial newspaper, more than 1 percent of homes in the nation were in some phase of foreclosure in 2007, double what was recorded for 2006.

The percentage of homes in New Hampshire entering foreclosure in 2007 is .67, or about one of every 150 loans, according to statistics from the national Mortgage Banker’s Association.

That’s creeping toward what the state’s rate was in the recession of the early 1990s, said Jane Law of the New Hampshire Housing and Finance Authority. For the entire country, that rate is .88 percent of all home loans.

The NHHFA’s Office of Planning and Policy conducted a study on foreclosures in December 2007 titled “Mortgage Delinquency, Foreclosures, and Subprime Lending in New Hampshire. How Big is the Problem?” which they updated in March with the most recent numbers from the last part of 2007.

Statistics from that study and RealtyTrac show the foreclosure wound deepening rapidly across the nation and the state in 2007, particularly in the fourth quarter. According to the study, there were 18,000 mortgage loans in the second quarter of 2007 with past due payments. Out of those, a total of 1,970 entered foreclosure in the fourth quarter, a 50 percent jump from the amount of homes entering foreclosure in the second quarter.

Out of about 32,650 subprime loans, almost 20 percent had a past due payment in the second quarter and about 3.5 percent of those had entered foreclosure in the fourth quarter, according to the study.

Subprime mortgages make up the larger portion of home loans entering foreclosure. In 1998, subprime mortgages made up only 2 percent of all mortgages. By 2007, that number had increased to 12 percent.

The state’s average foreclosures per month in 2005 hovered at around 40. In 2007, according to the study, that number jumped to 160 per month.

Contributing largely to the foreclosure troubles is the stagnant housing market, which prevented people from getting out from under mortgages that became too expensive, Law said.

“It was always an escape hatch for people when the market was going up,” Law said, adding the median home price went from $250,545 in October of 2007 to where it currently rests at $220,500. She added that the coming of spring will hopefully push that price back up.

Many of those who entered into subprime mortgage deals were middle class people looking to boost their lifestyle, the study found.

Hildreth said one of the trends his department saw with the subprime boom was the use of out-of-state mortgage companies and national banks rather than local banks and credit unions.

But Hildreth and Law both indicated that it’s not just a subprime mortgage problem anymore, a notion backed up by statistics from the national Mortgage Banker’s Association.

According to the statistics on delinquent payments, prime fixed mortgages with past due payments jumped about from about 2 percent of all loans of that type in the second quarter of 2007 to 4 percent by the fourth quarter.

The percentage of prime adjustable rate mortgages with past due payments jumped almost 3 percent in the same time period.

How local does it get?

Dave Mulchahey of Salem said his daughter’s home on Sylvan Road in Salem was foreclosed on after a series of financial hits, including her husband’s motorcycle accident.

At a public auction on Friday, April 4, at 3 p.m., the bank bought the home back for just under $200,000.

In Rockingham County, which includes Salem and Windham, RealtyTrac reports there were 108 foreclosures as of February 2008.

For 2007, the county had a total of 472, almost twice as many as the 240 foreclosures Realty- Trac reported for 2006.

The tax collectors for Salem not keep records of the number of foreclosure notices that come in or the actual foreclosures for the year.

Windham tax collector Ruth Robertson said while the town does not keep a count, it’s important to note that the town does not always receive all the notificaitons of foreclosures in town. Regardless, she said, the number coming in has risen in the past couple of years.

“The foreclosures have definitely increased,” she said.

Hillsborough County, which includes Pelham, showed a 54 percent increase in the number of foreclosures from 2006 to 2007.

According to RealtyTrac, Hillsborough County recorded 622 foreclosures for 2007 compared to 283 in 2006. Already, the county has had 144 foreclosures in January and February of 2008, just surpassing the half-way mark of the foreclosures RealtyTrac recorded for 2006.

Dorothy Marsden, Pelham’s town clerk, said the town only keeps a record of the foreclosure notices it receives. For all of 2007, the town received 33 notices of upcoming foreclosures.

“We’ve had 20 so far this year,” Marsden said, already more than two-thirds in a threemonth period of what the town got all of last year.

The number of foreclosures for Merrimack, Rockingham and Hillsborough counties combined in January of this year, 172 total, surpasses the number of foreclosures recorded for the entire state in January 2007, which was 157 according to RealtyTrac.

“It’s where people had to stretch to afford housing anyway,” Hildreth said of the troubling numbers for the three counties. “It’s still scary.”