Match info
Riverhounds (10-2-8) vs. Charleston Battery (9-5-6)
Date: Saturday, July 22
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Patriots Points Soccer Complex, Mount Pleasant, S.C.
Odds: Hounds +175/ Draw +230 / Charleston +135 (FanDuel)
Streaming: ESPN+
Live statistics: USL Championship Match Center
Live updates: @RiverhoundsSC on Twitter
Match hashtags: #CHSvPIT and #HOUNDTAHN
(July 21, 2023) — The longest unbeaten streak in the USL Championship this season faces one of its stiffest tests when the Hounds travel south to face the Charleston Battery for the second time this year in a 7:30 p.m. Saturday match at Patriots Point in Mount Pleasant, S.C.
The match comes three months to the day after the Hounds’ last league loss, April 22 at El Paso, and the team will be keen to keep that run going against a fellow contender for the top spot in the Eastern Conference. The Hounds have not lost in 13 USL matches since that El Paso contest, which makes it the second-longest such run in team history and the longest under coach Bob Lilley, surpassing the team’s 11-game closing run that clinched the top spot in the East on the final day of the 2019 season.
Defensively, the Hounds have eight clean sheets in their past nine games, putting together a stretch of 814 minutes with only one league goal conceded and none conceded in the past 408 minutes. But more promisingly, the attack seems to be getting back on track since the return of Albert Dikwa, the USL Championship’s co-leader with 10 goals this season.
While Dikwa got back on the scoresheet in the Hounds’ road win July 12 over Louisville, his play and the spacing he brings to the field is helping others. Edward Kizza got back to finding the net in last Saturday’s 2-0 win over Detroit, and Dikwa’s strength drew the foul that earned the free kick Burke Fahling buried in the second half of that win.
Not being overly reliant on one or two players has been a hallmark of this year’s Hounds, and with another three-games-in-eight-days stretch beginning tomorrow, it’s fair to expect some of the rested legs from last weekend — Robbie Mertz and Marc Ybarra both fit that bill in the midfield — back in the lineup.
Charleston, meanwhile, has cooled off some since a torrid start to the season, but the third-place Battery look as though they have the staying power to challenge for the top spot until the end. Back-to-back draws have seen Tampa Bay surpass Charleston for the second spot, but the Battery are no easy out in the humid conditions at Patriots Point, where they have only lost twice all season — once in a stunning blowout against defending champ San Antonio, and the other against Indy in a match where the Battery picked up a fluky first-minute red card.
The Battery have been one of the league’s better possession teams in their first year under coach Ben Pirmann, and they have a threatening player to spearhead their own attack with Augustine Williams (eight goals) up top. And though the Hounds took the first meeting of the year in Pittsburgh, 2-0 on June 10, the fact that Junior Etou netted the fastest goal in team history after just 21 seconds makes it a near-certainty this match will play out differently.
The game also might feature some astounding numbers of longevity. Hounds captain Kenardo Forbes potentially will make his 250th regular-season appearance in the USL Championship and surpass 20,000 minutes played (he needs 48 to do so) in the same match. Meanwhile, Fahling’s goal against Detroit was the 997th in Hounds history, meaning the 1,000-goal mark is within reach against the only active Championship team to also have accumulated that number.
Though there is no local telecast of tomorrow’s game, fans will be able to catch all the action streamed live via ESPN+.
Downloadable Game Notes
