VTDigger18%
After penalty kicks in Seattle, Vermont Green FC women end first season as runners-up 64%
By Theo Wells-Spackman68%
7/20/2026, 9:46:46 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 24 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Post Hoc (False Cause), and Confirmation Bias, with Optimism Bias as the most egregious example at 19.7% saturation with 133 hits. Analysis detected 1,029 faulty-reasoning hits from 676 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 59.5% and a BS Rank of 64% (6,860 of 19,035 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 64.00% of the article peer group.
The Vermont Green FC women’s team competed in the USL W championship on July 18, 2026, in Seattle.
Photo courtesy Kevin Ng/Vermont Green FC
Theo Wells-Spackman is a Report for America corps member who reports for VTDigger.
When Waterbury-born Louisa Thomsen equalized for Vermont Green FC in the United Soccer League women’s national championship Saturday, pandemonium ensued.
The substitutes’ bench erupted, dashing to embrace the Vermonter as the clock wound down in normal time.
Fans who made the trip to Salmon Bay FC’s home stadium in Seattle added to the noise.
And back in Vermont, a capacity crowd at Zero Gravity brewery — among many other watch parties — waved their flags with renewed hope.
“It’s one of those, like, storybook things,” club co-founder Patrick Infurna said of the homegrown midfielder Monday.
“It had to be her.”
“It was pretty awesome,” Thomsen reflected in an interview.
In the end, though, the women in green fell just short of a national title.
Despite holding Salmon Bay to a draw in open play, the Vermont team lost 5-4 in a penalty shootout, marking the team’s first ever defeat.
“It’s never a fun way to lose a match,” said head coach Abby Carchio.
But despite all that, and the subsequent cancellation of her entire team’s return flights due to weather, she said her defining emotion Monday was gratitude at the end of the team’s inaugural season.
After topping the Northeast Division of the USL W, a 96-team nationwide women’s summer league largely featuring collegiate players, the Green mounted a deep run into the playoffs.
After the team defeated Pennsylvania-based Eagle FC to win the league’s Eastern Conference at the first time of asking, a win against North Carolina’s Asheville City SC in front of a sold-out crowd in Burlington propelled Carchio’s squad to the national final.
Support from the club’s owners and supporters, as well as her team’s growth in both togetherness and tactical execution, powered the extraordinary first season, Carchio said.
“The player group has been incredibly special,” she said of the newly assembled squad.
For Thomsen, playing in this league for a Vermont-based club in front of family and friends realized an improbable dream.
“It’s never been something that I thought was even an option,” she said.
The 21-year-old plays for Bucknell University in Pennsylvania during the academic year.
Having spent years seeking out the highest available level of soccer in Vermont, Thomsen said, the news that Vermont Green FC was preparing to launch a women’s team was exciting in itself.
And after making the roster this summer, she worked her way off the bench to start in many of the squad’s most important games.
Beyond technical development, the exposure Vermont Green offers can help young players access other playing opportunities, or even land a professional contract, Thomsen said.
“You never know who’s watching,” she said of the playoff games her club played this summer.
But more immediately, she’s excited for Vermont Green’s continued growth in coming years.
Recruitment will only strengthen with time, she said, and the club’s management is already “top tier.”
“There’s a national championship in the future, 100%,” Thomsen said.
Infurna agrees.
The stories and excitement generated by this early success can only help the club’s momentum going forward.
“Burlington and Vermont in general are a real current — and I think future — cultural powerhouse for women’s soccer,” he said.
He commended the players, coaching staff and fans alike for their dedication to the club’s project this season.
Virtue Field’s bleachers, which hold 2,500, sold out for nearly every home women’s game this season as a distinct fan culture formed around the women’s team, according to Infurna.
“We didn’t fail by not winning the final,” he said.
“We are so proud.”
The Vermont Green men’s team, still boasting an undefeated record of its own this season, will face Asheville City in Laredo, Texas on Friday for the Eastern Conference championship in the United Soccer League’s second men’s tier.
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