Leading up to the start of our 2021 season, we’re going to take a look at each of the Hounds’ 2021 Atlantic Division opponents. First up in our series is the only team with a longer history than our own, the Charleston Battery.
No look at the Battery, who were founded in 1993, would be complete without first mentioning their head coach, Mike Anhaeuser. First a player, then an assistant coach, then for the last 18 seasons their head coach, Anhaeuser’s history and the Battery’s are one and the same.
Charleston has been a perennial playoff participant, and last year was no different, as they finished second in Group H with a 9-3-3 record and reached the Eastern Conference semifinals. They return an especially solid defensive group, led by second-team All-USL center back Leland Archer and veteran goalkeeper Joe Kuzminsky.
Bermudan international Zeiko Lewis remains with the team after two seasons as their top attacking threat from both midfield and forward positions, and he will be one of the faces still familiar to the Hounds, who did not face the Battery last season.
The Hounds are 7-13-13 all-time against the Battery, dating back to the clubs’ first meeting on July 30, 1999, a 2-0 home win in Pittsburgh. The teams last met on Sept. 14, 2019, at Highmark Stadium in a match also won by the Hounds, 1-0.
With the two historic foes meeting up, it also provides a chance for the respective supporters’ groups to revive the Old Guard Shield, an annual trophy originally designed to be contested among the five oldest teams in the USL Championship. However, with the Richmond Kickers currently playing in USL League One, and neither the Rochester Rhinos nor Penn FC (the former Harrisburg City Islanders) fielding a team in 2021, it will be up to the Hounds and the Battery to keep the tradition alive).
The teams meet for the first time on July 7 at Patriots Point Soccer Stadium in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., the first of four scheduled meetings in 2021. Though it is the Battery’s second year in their new home, it will be the Hounds’ first trip to a venue other than Charleston’s former home, Blackbaud Stadium, which opened in 1999, the same season the Hounds first hit the field.
