Vermont Green FC faced bitter rivals Seacoast United on Sunday afternoon and were unable to get revenge on the Phantoms after tasting defeat down in New Hampshire earlier in the season.

Pfeifer rolled out a top-notch starting XI that featured Jaheim Wickham in net. Gerardo Castillo, Reid Fisher, Moussa Ndiaye, and Bernardo Prego made up the back line while Rodrigo Vaza and Sam Layton served as defensive midfielders.

Gabe Threadgold and Jackson Castro were on the wings while Zachary Zengue was once again the magician in the middle of the park. Golden-boot chaser Yaniv Bazini was the lone striker up top.

Bazini nearly scored in the 18th minute as he connected on a long ball and chipped a ball towards goal that was stopped. The striker got another chance early on off a set-piece but his header was easily saved.

The opener came in the 33rd minute as Layton headed home a corner from Castillo. The midfielder looked like he was the hero of the match but just before stoppage time, Layton turned the ball over in front of goal and Seacoast tied the game.

“I think we’ve obviously got to be a little bit better in those critical moments,” Pfeifer told The Blazing Musket. “Like our own corner kick and then the end of the half on our own sort of build-out that was kind of a self-inflicted goal.”

In the 64th minute, Seacoast would once again have a moment of magic as they capitalized off a corner and secured a 2-1 lead. The Phantoms shushed the crowd and even dropped a Jude Bellinghamesque celebration in front of the Green Mountain Bhoys.

After the goal, Pfeifer made his most significant change as Layton, Zengue, and Prego were replaced by Jacob Labovitz, Daniel Pacella, and Sebastian Gebhart in the 71st minute. Labovits and Bazini were tasked with finding the back of the net as Vermont searched for a pivotal goal.

Bazini and Labovits had their chances as corners and crosses were aplenty, but the opportunities were wasted and the match ended 2-1.

“But we’ve also got to have more quality in front of goal,“ Pfeifer said. “We had a lot of chances in this game, more than enough to score three or four goals and they got their couple chances and they finished them and we had probably more but didn’t do a lot with it. So you know, it’s a hard thing to to change overnight.

“Yeah, I don’t I don’t really have that answer to be honest with you,” he later said when asked about pinpointing the cause of the finishing woes. “I mean, it’s kind of plagued us these last few years. So, you know, I have a hard time thinking that we don’t have good enough players. We seem to dominate games and not quite get as many goals out of it as we should. Alot of the burden falls on Yaniv and he scored a lot of goals this year and I thought he was really really good in the game today and other guys need to score goals.”

With the loss, The Green will need some help as they look to make the playoffs. Seacoast has already clinched a playoff spot and seems poised to clinch first place. The Phantoms and Western Mass Pioneers only played once, with Seacoast taking the win; while Vermont faces WMP in the final match of the season.

The Green currently sit at 26 points while Western Mass has 31 points. If Vermont wants a chance to secure a playoff birth, they will need AC Connecticut to upset the Pioneers. On the flip side, The Green will need to beat the Boston Bolts on Wednesday and Western Mass on Saturday.

“I think this team from the beginning of the season, we made it our goal to try and win something big and although maybe the division is a little bit out of our reach right now, we still have a chance to make it into playoffs,” Pacella said. “And I think from the get go of this season, we made it our main focus to get to the playoffs and it’s still within our reach.”

The Saratoga County Sheriff’s Office arrested Kristen A. Yerry, 25, of Richford, Vermont for second-degree burglary and fourth-degree grand larceny on July 4.

Authorities responded to a call of inactive larceny at a residence on Hudson River Road at 10:18 a.m. in Halfmoon.

After investigation, Yerry was arrested and charged for entering and remaining unlawfully in a dwelling with the intent to commit a crime, said the Sheriff’s Office.

She is also charged with stealing property from the residence with value in excess of $1000.

The Sheriff’s Office says she was arraigned in Halfmoon Town Court and remanded to the Saratoga County Jail in lieu of bail or bond pending further action in the matter.

US President Joe Biden heads back out on the campaign trail Sunday, desperate to salvage his re-election bid as senior Democrats meet to discuss growing calls that he quit the White House race.

The 81-year-old Democrat kicks off a grueling week with two campaign rallies in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, before hosting the NATO leaders’ summit in Washington. 

He will do so under an increasingly unforgiving spotlight, as pressure mounts for him to drop out after his disastrous debate against Donald Trump last month ignited panic over his age and fitness to serve another four years.

Biden has remained defiant, unequivocally declaring — at a rally, to reporters and on social media — that he is fit to serve, the only one who can defeat Trump, and staying in the race. 

“I beat Trump in 2020. I’m going to beat him again in 2024,” his campaign social media account posted Saturday.

But a televised interview with ABC News on Friday has failed to quell concerns. His next major test in the public eye will be a press conference scheduled for Thursday, during the NATO summit. 

So far, five Democratic lawmakers have called on Biden to drop out, with the drumbeat of dissent slowly rising.

The House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, has scheduled a virtual meeting of senior Democrat representatives for Sunday to discuss the best way forward, and Democrat Senator Mark Warner is reportedly working to convene a similar forum in the upper chamber.

First Lady Jill Biden, who — according to some US media reports — is urging her husband to stay in the race, is scheduled to campaign in Georgia, Florida and North Carolina on Monday.

But after Sunday’s rallies in Philadelphia and Harrisburg, the president will have to step away from the campaign for the NATO summit beginning Tuesday.

Here, too, he will find himself having to reassure allies at a time when many European countries fear a Trump victory in November. 

The 78-year-old Republican has long criticized NATO as an unfair burden on the United States, voiced admiration for Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, and insisted he could bring about a quick end to the fighting in Ukraine, where the Russian invasion is now in its third year.

– ‘Lord Almighty’ –

For now, Democrat heavyweights are largely keeping a lid on any simmering discontent with their leader — at least in public.

But with election day just four months away, any move to replace Biden as the nominee would need to be made sooner rather than later, and the party will be scrutinized for any signs of more open rebellion.

Meanwhile, for Biden and his campaign team, the strategy seems to be to ride it out.

The campaign has unveiled an intense battle plan for July, including an avalanche of TV spots and trips to all the key states.

That includes a visit to the southwest of the country during the Republican convention from July 15-18, at which Trump is set to be anointed the party’s official presidential nominee. 

In what had been billed as a make-or-break interview with ABC News on Friday, Biden flatly dismissed the falling poll numbers and concerns over his mental and physical fitness triggered by his dismal June 27 performance against Trump.

He blamed a severe cold for the debate debacle and insisted it was just a “bad night” rather than evidence of increasing frailty and cognitive decline.

The sit-down has not soothed the concerns of critics who say that — away from a teleprompter — Biden can struggle to communicate.

Some of his answers were tentative, meandering and difficult to follow, even as he sought to deflect questions about his mental acuity and dismissed the notion that his party would consider replacing him.

“If the Lord Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get out of the race,’ I’d get out of the race,” he said.

“But the Lord Almighty is not coming down.”

bur-st/ssy