SHELBURNE, Vt. (WCAX) – The 2026 World Lacrosse Women’s Championship wrapped up earlier this month over in Tokyo, with the US beating Canada to take the gold medal. But one Shelburne native was also there, helping her mother’s home country make history.
We last met Gretta White back in 2022, when the former CVU Redhawk turned St. Paul’s School midfielder was just 16 years old and fresh off a trip to women’s worlds as a member of Argentina’s national team.
“My Mom was born and raised in Argentina and she moved to Winooski actually for a work-study program at st. Mike’s,” White said. “My dad and her met at Mad River Glen, they were both working there and so Vermont and Argentina have been mixed forever for her.”
As White developed as a lacrosse player, her father helped her find an opportunity to grow her game while representing her mother’s homeland at the same time.
“To be honest, it’s a really small pool of people,” White said of Argentina’s lacrosse program. “So it was kinda like the minute I emailed being like, ‘Hey I would love to play,’ it was kinda like, ‘You’re in.’”
White and the Argentinians finished 26th four years ago, but in the year’s since, they’ve made big time strides. Partially through growing the sport domestically, but also through recruiting more dual nationals.
“It’s really special actually, because I feel like we both have a lot to give to each other,” White said of the dual-nats and born-and-bred Argentinian teammates. “The lacrosse side of things, the girls in Argentina are so excited to learn from us and learn about high school lacrosse, college lacrosse. And then for us, obviously we have a strong connection to Argentina, but we really just want to learn from them like what it’s actually like to be Argentinian: all the food, all the desserts, all the aspects of culture that it’s hard to get in the US.”
And it’s not just Argentinian culture that White has been exposed to.
“I’ve been to so many places I never thought I would go,” she said. “Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Japan. That’s one of the farthest places from Vermont that you could possibly travel and it’s a whole different culture.”
Playing together and growing over the past four years, the Argentinians made a 17-spot improvement at worlds, leaping all the way up into the global top ten. And White was a huge part of that, scoring 14 goals, fifth most in the entire tournament.
“I was very, very proud of our team,” White said. “We definitely saw ourselves as the underdog, we had some really gritty games: one against Ireland and another game against the Philippines which went to overtime. Everyone gave it their 100% all in those last couple games, and everyone was really excited.”
Crazy enough, White got to play against fellow Shelburne native and former teammate Amelie Scharf in that Ireland game and scored the game-tying goal with seven seconds left against the Philippines.
White says the experience of testing herself against some of the best players in the world will help immensely as she readies for her sophomore season at Cornell…but White also has her sights set on LA 2028, with Argentina hoping to snag one of the five available spots as lacrosse returns to the Olympics for the first time in more than a century.
“It’s like a 3-part series of qualifying, and the first one is going to this tournament in Canada,” White said of the upcoming Pan-American championship. “Five teams from that tournament get to go to the World Championship of Sixes (the modified format of lacrosse which will be played in LA). And from there, five teams get to compete for a spot in the Olympics. And I think this is one of our best teams yet so we’re really excited for it.”
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