The 2024 Vermont high school fall season has begun. See below for scores, schedules and game details (statistical leaders, game notes) from soccer, field hockey, volleyball, golf and cross-country running.

To report scores: Coaches or team representatives are asked to report results ASAP after games by emailing sports@burlingtonfreepress.com. Please submit with a name/contact number.

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

►Contact Judith Altneu at jaltneu@gannett.com. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter: @Judith_Altneu.

SATURDAY’S COLLEGE GAMES

Women’s hockey

Merrimack at Vermont, 3 p.m.

Men’s hockey

Vermont at St. Thomas, 7 p.m.

Men’s soccer

NJIT at Vermont, 1 p.m.

SATURDAY’S H.S. GAMES

Football

See Week 7 scoreboard for schedule, results

Boys soccer

Milton at Vergennes, noon

Field hockey 

Otter Valley at Woodstock, 11 a.m.

SUNDAY’S COLLEGE GAMES

Women’s soccer

Vermont at UMass Lowell, 1 p.m.

(Subject to change)

A woman from China pleaded guilty on Friday to attempting to smuggle 29 eastern box turtles, a protected species, across a Vermont lake into Canada by kayak.

Wan Yee Ng, 41, was arrested on the morning of June 28 at an Airbnb in Canaan as she was about to get into an inflatable kayak with a duffle bag on Lake Wallace, according to a Border Patrol agent’s affidavit filed in federal court.

Agents had been notified by Royal Canadian Mounted Police that two other people, including a man who was believed to be her husband, had started to paddle an inflatable watercraft from the Canadian side of the lake toward the United States, according to court documents.

The agents searched her heavy duffle bag and found 29 live eastern box turtles individually wrapped in socks, the affidavit states. Eastern box turtles are known to be sold on the Chinese black market for $1,000 each, the affidavit stated.

Her cellphone was seized, and a search by law enforcement found communications showing that she tried to smuggle the turtles into Canada so that they could eventually be sold for a profit in Hong Kong, according to the plea agreement. Ng, from Hong Kong, was living in Canada.

She pleaded guilty on Friday to one count of unlawfully attempting to export and send 29 eastern box turtles out of the United States, contrary to law. VTDigger first reported on the plea deal.

She is scheduled to be sentenced in December and faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

The Vermont minimum wage is set to increase on Jan. 1, 2025.

The minimum wage will increase to $14.01 per hour, from $13.67 per hour, according to the Vermont Department of Labor. The tipped minimum wage, which is the lowest amount an employer can pay a tipped employee per hour of work, will also increase, to $7.01 per hour, from $6.84 per hour.

Under legislation enacted in 2020, Vermont’s minimum wage is raised each Jan. 1 by 5% or by the percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is smaller.

The Department of Labor defines the state’s tipped minimum wage as a law that “allows employers to pay a lower hourly rate, as long as the employee receives tips equal to, or greater to than, the standard minimum wage during a given shift. In cases where the employee does not receive enough in tips during a workweek to equal the standard minimum wage per hour, the employer is required to pay the difference in order to ensure the tipped wage employee is compensated at the non-tipped minimum wage amount. ”

Among Vermont’s bordering states, the minimum wage in New York in 2024 was $15 across the state, and $16 in New York City. The Massachusetts minimum wage is also $15 per hour.

In New Hampshire, the statewide minimum wage in 2024 was $7.25 per hour, as New Hampshire follows the federal minimum wage.

Sydney P. Hakes is the Burlington city reporter. Contact her at SHakes@gannett.com.