BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – The Vermont Green men are off until next Wednesday, but that doesn’t mean Virtue Field will be quiet this week. On Saturday night, VGFC will make history with the club’s inaugural women’s exhibition match against FC Laval of Quebec’s Ligue Un.
The Girls in Green hosted their first training session on a scorching hot afternoon Wednesday at Virtue. The roster was constructed in a similar fashion to the men’s roster, with a number of current and former UVM stars, a handful from other local schools, and a strong contingent of native Vermonters as well.
The VGFC Women will be coached by former USWNT international and World Cup champion Sam Mewis, who recently moved to Vermont herself.
Everyone around the club is looking forward to the opportunity to continue building the women’s game here in our region.
“I think that this game really can pave a pathway to show the rest of Vermont what we have,” said UVM and VGFC midfielder Olivia White, a Pittsford native.
“It’s about the kids, about the fans,” added former UVM goalkeeper Erin Murphy. “I hope they have a good experience. Hopefully we can deliver the win. I can’t imagine being a little kid and if I would’ve grown up with something like this around, I definitely would’ve taken full advantage of it.”
“I didn’t really expect to be involved in a soccer community physically here,” Mewis added. “It’s really cool that there’s a lot of opportunities to do that. I actually hear that the youth programs here are really great as well. So I feel like Vermont is just very well-rounded and really has this great soccer community.”
Saturday’s game will kick off at 6 p.m. Online grandstand tickets are sold out, though the club says a limited number of walk-up tickets will be available.

Eight local baseball players were named to the Southern Vermont League all-opponents team, the league announced on Tuesday.

After a 15-4 season, Burr and Burton had four players named to the A Division first team: Max Brownlee, Seb Dostal, Jack McCoy and Danny Scarlotta. Bulldogs Coach Ed Lewicki was named the division’s coach of the year.

Mount Anthony’s Tanner Bushee and Jacoby Dicranian were also named to the A Division first team, leading the Patriots to a 14-4 season.

Arlington had two representatives in the D Division: Kasey Dickie and Kyle Hess. The duo helped Arlington to a 12-6 record and a trip to the Division IV semifinals.

The Oliver Ford dealership proudly supports our local athletes. 

Beginning in January, Vermont state Rep. Jim Carroll began finding himself with a very wet bag. It was all so weird. He’d have no actual water in the bag of his belongings, then suddenly the fabric would be sopping. After a while, the Democrat began to suspect his colleague, Republican Rep. Mary Morrissey, who like him represents the city of Bennington. She’d been “nasty” to him for months, saying “demeaning things in front of other legislators,” Carroll tells the Guardian. So he did a bit of sleuthing. For weeks, he secretly recorded footage of his tote bag hanging on a hook in the Statehouse hallway, just outside his committee room, and caught Morrissey in the act—twice.

One video shows Carroll, 62, checking the tote bag seconds before a woman appears and pours in a cup of water. Though the footage doesn’t show the woman’s face, others identified her as 67-year-old Morrissey, whose committee room is across the hall from Carroll’s. “It’s hard to understand why someone would stoop to that level,” Republican state Rep. Mike Marcotte tells Seven Days. “It was jaw-dropping,” adds Democratic state Rep. Angela Arsenault. “It was bizarre. Why? That’s what I kept saying. Why?” Carroll says Morrissey initially claimed she only “flicked” water on the bag to remove a bug, per the Guardian. However, she eventually admitted to pouring water into the bag over the course of months, without explaining why, Carroll says.

Some suspect Morrissey’s actions were related to Carroll’s well-publicized drunk driving arrest at the Statehouse in February. Whatever the reason, House Speaker Jill Krowinski blocked Morrissey from serving on a key legislative committee, Seven Days reports. The House Ethics Panel also launched a confidential investigation. Morrissey apologized during a House session on Monday. “I am truly ashamed of my actions,” she said, per Boston.com. But “her apology holds about as much water as my canvas bag,” Carroll tells the Guardian, noting he’s considering whether to pursue harassment charges. “He felt like he was losing his mind,” Arsenault tells Seven Days. “And I think that was part of the purpose behind it.” (More Vermont stories.)