LEBANON, N.H. — Otter Valley Union High School running back and linebacker Brent Nickerson was the only local player named last week to the Vermont senior football team that will take on New Hampshire this summer in the 64th Annual Shrine Maple Sugar Bowl.
Players from 18 schools around Vermont were selected for the Vermont squad, but no members of the Middlebury or Mount Abraham/Vergennes collective teams were chosen.
Players were nominated by their head coaches. Screening committees, chaired by the Shrine head coaches, made the final selections.
Bellows Falls Coach Bob Lockerby will lead a Vermont squad that will be trying for a second straight win after snapping a lengthy losing skid a year ago. 
Trinity High School coach Rob Cathcart will head the New Hampshire team.
The two teams met with their coaches in early March to review game plans. Formal practice will begin on Sunday, July 30, for both teams at Castleton University. 
The Shrine Bowl is played for the benefit of the Shriners’ Hospitals for Crippled and Burned Children and in its first 63 years has raised nearly $5 million. The game is one of 30 such games played annually across the country. Two Vermont Shrine Centers, Cairo (Rutland) and Mt. Sinai (Montpelier), sponsor the Vermont-New Hampshire contest.