Morrill twins bring fun spirit to Nipmuc boys soccer team

UPTON — As Charlie Morrill scampered off the Nipmuc soccer field alongside his twin brother, Bennet, Monday afternoon, Charlie held a large Nutcracker in his arms.

The festive 3-foot toy soldier – adorned in a red and white cap and gown – is named ‘Kevin’ and is a part of the Morrill family this fall.

“Chuck, why did ‘Kevin’ come today?” Nipmuc athletic director Chris Schmidt asked Charlie after the boys’ soccer game.

“It’s our mascot!” Charlie, 17, said.

“He hasn’t been here at all this year,” Schmidt responded.

“He has been here in my car!” Charlie said.

On Sept. 19, Charlie’s father, Greg, found the Nutcracker in the attic of their Upton home. Greg thought the holiday decoration would make for a good target for a pellet-gun competition between him, Charlie, Bennet and the twins’ older brother, Max.

Greg took the adornment outside and shot it once between the eyes.

“It basically ricocheted off,” Greg said. “So I thought he’s not going to be a good target.”

Greg proceeded to place the wounded Nutcracker inside of his sons’ gray Jeep Wrangler (Bennet and Charlie split using the car) and strapped it into the passenger seat.  

“I was going to my girlfriend’s house and as I was pulling out of the driveway my dad comes out and tells me, ‘Here, keep this in the car,’” Bennet said. “So I kept it in the car.”

“He’s been in there ever since,” Greg said.

On Monday, the decoration with white hair and a white mustache, and a white headband with a green letter ‘N’ for Nipmuc itched across it, made its way out of the twins’ car and onto the scorer’s table of a boys soccer game between Nipmuc and Northbridge.

‘Kevin’ – a name the two twins instantly came up with – stood guard as Bennet, a midfielder, and Charlie, a goalkeeper, helped their team win 3-0 in Nipmuc’s final home game of the season.

“I just met ‘Kevin’ today for the first time, so this all new to me,” Nipmuc boys soccer coach Chris Hadfield said.

“I just wanted ‘Kevin’ to be a part of it, basically,” Charlie said. “It’s just kind of our thing to enjoy our last ride together.”

Always a competition

The Morrill boys and their father held a fishing competition this past summer on a lake by their house in Unity, Maine.

“We just did it this year because of COVID,” their father said.

“Everything has to be a competition,” said their mother, Allison.

The idea was simple: to win, you had to catch the biggest fish.

The one snag in the fishing derby, though?

“Charlie doesn’t like to touch (fish) because they’re slimy,” his mother said.

Yet, despite catching only a handful of fish all summer, Charlie reeled in the biggest prize: a 4-pound largemouth bass.

The Nipmuc senior – with a disdain for touching fish – had his twin brother and his father help take the winning catch off of the hook.

“It’s like an irrational fear and they make fun of me for it,” Charlie said. “But it’s like karma because I got the biggest fish.”

In fourth grade, Charlie broke his left hand sledding behind Nipmuc Regional High School.

A month later, he was out snowboarding at Ski Ward Ski Area in Shrewsbury with his friend, Chris Lavoie, and his two brothers. He just so happened to sustain another injury in the snow.

“I started going down (the slope) and I was feeling myself and I said ‘See ya later, suckers,’” Charlie said. “I then caught my back-foot edge and I started doing back flips and barrel rolls and I landed right on my wrist.”

“He got up and his wrist was mangled,” Max said.

Growing up, mini-indoor basketball was a standard activity for the Morrill brothers. One time, Max and Bennet were playing against one another as the former charged the latter before dunking the ball. The two brothers then fell to the ground and heard a big clang come from downstairs.

“We didn’t know what it was at first,” Bennet said.

After hearing the loud bang, their mother scrambled into the dining room to find a chandelier lying on the table. The light fixture had fallen from the ceiling due to the mini-basketball game held upstairs.

“That was the end of mini-hoops,” their mother said.

Two of a kind, kinda

On Monday, Charlie and Bennet Morrill shared separate sips of water out of a green Gatorade bottle during the second half of their soccer game.

After the victory over Northbridge, the two soccer players shared a bedroom in their Upton home.

“We’ve both grown accustomed to it,” Bennet said.

“Charlie moves out every so often,” his mother said.

Charlie is described as more active while Bennet keeps more of a low profile. “Extreme opposites,” according to their mother.

The Morrill twins wrap up their high school soccer careers on Wednesday.

As a freshman, Bennet was a member of the Division 3 state championship team in 2017 before both brothers’ got a taste of a Div. 3 Central sectional title victory as sophomores.

“They’re just two really good characters to have,” said their soccer coach, Hadfield. “They definitely have two really unique personalities.”

Bennet will move on to play Division I soccer at Merrimack College, where his older brother plays lacrosse. Charlie is undecided, but has Merrimack on his short list of destinations.

“Our parents always wanted us to stay relatively close with colleges and I was fortunate enough to get an offer from Merrimack and I just kind of had to take it,” Bennet said. “Seeing Max on campus and being around him will be fun.”

If toting around ‘Kevin’ didn’t illustrate it, Bennet and Charlie Morrill like to have fun. Lots of it.

The Nutcracker was just a small slice of life with the Morrill twins.

“Life wouldn’t be interesting without these two,” Max said.

Tommy Cassell is a senior multimedia journalist for the Daily News. He can be reached at tcassell@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @tommycassell44.