Vermont

Champlain Little League all-stars secure Vermont softball state championship three-peat

Published

11 months ago

on

July 13, 2025

By

Press Room

Champlain Little League all-stars secure Vermont softball state championship three-peat

ST. ALBANS — The 10-to-12-year-old all-stars from Champlain are headed back to Bristol. Yet again.

Riding Ellis Montgomery’s complete-game performance in the circle and a momentum-shifting, three-run second inning, Champlain ousted Colchester for a 5-3 victory in the Vermont Little League softball state championship game at St. Albans Bay Town Park on Saturday, July 12.

Three-time defending state champion Champlain booked its spot at the New England Region Tournament in Bristol, Connecticut, and will play its first game on Monday, July 21 against the winner of Rhode Island and Maine.

“This one means a lot. Going down there is very special,” said Champlain manager Mike Conger, who will make his fourth trip overall to Bristol with a Vermont state champion.

Colchester, which came into the game undefeated through district and state tournament play, seized a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning. Leadoff hitter Ella Carey walked, stole second and third, and then scooted home on a passed ball.

In the top of the second, Champlain scored three runs, all with two outs, and without recording a hit. Champlain took advantage of four walks and a hit by pitch to plate its runs and earn a 3-1 margin.

“We talked about being patient at the plate,” Conger said. “(Colchester ace Madison Besaw’s) a heck of a pitcher and she has some nice speed.”

Colchester got one back in the bottom of the third when Carey tripled with two outs and then scored on an error.

Ahead 4-2 to start the sixth, Champlain tacked on an insurance run when Bailee Conger’s hit allowed Kinsley Winegar to come home. Champlain could’ve opened a bigger advantage, but Carey came in on relief of Colchester’s second pitcher, Jordyn Burghdurf, and proceeded to induce a pop fly and strike out two batters with the bases loaded and no outs.

Colchester made a comeback bid in the final frame. Quinn Bouchard walked with one out and then later scored on Lucy McHugh’s sharp single to right. But Montgomery got a groundout and a pop-up to stave off the rally and seal Champlain’s championship three-peat.

“We had total faith in her,” Mike Conger said of Montgomery. “She’s put in so much work since the winter, so many of these girls have.”

Champlain opened the state tourney with a loss in extra innings to Connecticut Valley. Champlain then mercy-ruled Northeast and Connecticut Valley in a rematch to advance to the final vs Colchester.

“We go out there and battle and compete. Just a fine group to be around,” Conger said.

Green Mountain cruises to 8-10 softball state crown

Behind Dottie Green’s lights-out pitching and a deep hitting lineup, the 8-to-10-year-old stars from Green Mountain roared to the Vermont Little League softball state title with a 9-0 win over Essex in the tournament final at Northfield on Friday, July 11.

Green Mountain, comprised of teams across Central Vermont, outscored opponents 51-0 over six tournament games (district and state), according to team manager Katie Green. Green Mountain ace Dottie Green totaled 81 strikeouts against 106 batters faced, while catcher Lily Brynga allowed only just one passed ball out of 466 pitches.

Green Mountain’s offense racked up 47 hits. Brynga scored nine runs and Arie DeFreest led the team in on-base percentage. Brynga and Green had homers during tournament play, and Mackenzie Bean, Mackenzie Messier, Serena VanderBush and Brynga also produced extra-base hits.

Contact Alex Abrami at aabrami@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter:@aabrami5.

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Vermont

Hundreds of housing units in the works at closely-watched project in Burlington’s South End – VTDigger

Published

16 minutes ago

on

June 3, 2026

By

Press Room

Hundreds of housing units in the works at closely-watched project in Burlington’s South End – VTDigger

A rendering of the South End Coordinated Redevelopment Project, courtesy of Andrew Foley, development director at Jonathan Rose Companies. Credit: GOA Architecture.

This story, by Report for America corps member Carly Berlin, was produced through a partnership between VTDigger and Vermont Public.

A long-awaited housing development that could bring hundreds of new apartments to a series of empty lots in Burlington’s South End neighborhood is beginning to come together.

The first phase of the major public-private deal, called the South End Coordinated Redevelopment Project, got official sign-off from the Burlington City Council last month. The project’s backers have also scored key funding commitments from Treasurer Mike Pieciak’s office and state housing funding agencies.

The project on Lakeside Avenue is the beginning of “a neighborhood being born out of a big parking lot,” Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak told city councilors in May.

City officials and developers hope the project could eventually include over a thousand homes, making it one of the largest developments in Vermont – and putting a considerable dent in the Queen City’s housing shortage. Regional planners estimate that Burlington needs to add between 3,500 and 10,500 homes by 2050 to get the housing market to a healthy state.

The development is possible, in part, because of a 2023 zoning change in the formerly industrial area that allows for some of the densest housing development in the state, according to local planners.

The South End project’s backers include Champlain College, Champlain Housing Trust and Ride Your Bike LLC, the investors behind the nearby Hula coworking campus. They have brought on Jonathan Rose Companies, an affordable housing developer with projects from New York to California, as the lead developer. The South End project is the company’s first in Vermont.

The development agreement signed by city councilors in May greenlights the South End project’s first 204 units, estimated to cost roughly $100 million.

Per Burlington’s inclusionary zoning policy and state rules, at least 20% of the first round of apartments will be set aside as affordable. But the developers hope to secure enough funding to allow them to earmark a third of the 204 apartments with income restrictions, said Andrew Foley, director of development at Jonathan Rose Companies, in an interview. The development agreement offers the developers reduced city fees if the affordable units are priced even more modestly than required.

The lion’s share of the new apartments will be studios and one-bedrooms, Foley said. The building would include common social spaces for neighbors to gather, he added.

Like any large-scale housing project, the developers of the South End apartments are piecing together financing from a wide array of sources. They recently scored an $8 million low-interest loan from Pieciak’s 10% for Vermont program, along with a $6.7 million award from the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board to support 67 affordable apartments – including 10 reserved for people experiencing homelessness.

To build out new roads – along with wastewater connections and stormwater infrastructure meant to cut down on sewer overflows into nearby Lake Champlain – city officials are going after funding from a new state program. The Community and Housing Infrastructure Program, a tax-increment financing tool created by the Legislature last year, would allow the city and the developers to borrow the funds needed to build out the infrastructure against the development’s future property tax revenue.