Nine matches into the USL Championship regular season, more than a quarter of the team’s league matches are in the book. And with some up-and-down results leading to a 4-4-1 record, it’s difficult to say exactly how the 2026 season will shape up.
That’s not surprising, however. Take a trip back to May 2023, and no one would’ve guessed the Hounds would lift the Players’ Shield.
And in May 2025? There might have been a padded room for you at Western Psych if you were predicting the Hounds’ first Championship trophy lift come November.
Early returns have rarely been indicative of the final outcome of Riverhounds’ seasons over the past decade-plus, and as shown by the team’s two official honors — the 2023 Players’ Shield and 2025 Championship title — the way a team finishes the year is far more important than how it starts.
First off, the raw numbers, and the caveat that all rankings exclude the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. This year’s Hounds are on 13 points through nine matches, which is the fifth-most by a Hounds team since 2014, the year the league expanded to a 28-game schedule. By comparison, the 2025 team had only eight points (2-5-2), and the 2023 team sat at 11 (2-2-5) at the same point.
The best start during that time? That would be the 2022 season when the team had 19 points (6-2-1). That season was only the second time in club history the Hounds had won at least five of their first nine league matches, but the end result was a fifth-place finish in the East and a second-round exit from the USL Championship Playoffs.
The reverse also can be true. The 2017 Hounds began the year with a 4-3-2 record for 14 points after nine games, the third-best start from 2014 to today. Twenty-three games later, those Hounds had gained only 22 more points to end the season in 13th place in what would be the last year before the start of their current eight-year postseason streak.
That begs the question, what is it that flips the switch for a team and propels them to late-season and end of season success?
In 2019, the team’s only other season finishing atop the Eastern Conference, the Hounds showed from the outset they would be a tough out, but defensive lapses and missed opportunities led to a 2-1-6 start. With minor tweaks and steady improvement, those draws began to turn into wins on the way to a 19-4-11 record.
But in both 2023 and last year, there were clear, galvanizing moments when fortunes turned.
The 2023 season saw the team make a major move in May, bringing back Danny Griffin from his short stint in the Nashville SC/Huntsville City organization in MLS and MLS Next Pro. The future Hounds captain then scored in his second game back, the team’s 1-0 win over the New England Revolution in the U.S. Open Cup that continued their run to the quarterfinals.
That Open Cup run, which also included a 1-0 win over the Columbus Crew, injected confidence into the Hounds and helped them rattle off a 13-match league unbeaten streak, despite losing eventual Golden Boot winner Albert Dikwa for a month to a broken collarbone. The team was in position at that point, and an eight-match unbeaten run to end the regular season ensured the Shield came to Pittsburgh.
Last season, the turning point came later — a tumultuous 20-day span from which the team emerged united and seemingly more relaxed. A controversial finish to a vital 2-1 road win at Hartford last September was followed by a home match against Las Vegas that was postponed less than 24 hours before kickoff.
The Hounds got the win over Vegas, but obstacles continued to come their way with a lopsided loss at Miami before the surprising coaching move that thrust assistant coach Rob Vincent into the acting head coach role. The players managed to put all of the drama of those three weeks behind them to finish the regular season with two wins and a draw, and the resilience continued through three penalty shootouts in four playoff matches on the way to the title.
Is there a moment like that in the works for the 2026 team? The Hounds would prefer to do without the drama, and maybe the sparks they need are already in the room.
Injuries and a condensed schedule have piled the minutes onto the Hounds, who played 12 matches in an eight-week span between the league, Open Cup and Prinx Tires USL Cup. The Hounds traveled with one fewer player than allowed on the bench for last Saturday’s match at Charlotte with a half-dozen players ruled out with a range of ailments from minor knocks to post-surgery recovery.
The team having 15 days between matches until their next league outing May 30 against Miami FC couldn’t have come at a better time. Griffin, Bradley Sample, Eliot Goldthorp and others have benefitted from the extra time to rest, while the team will be boosted in the coming weeks with the return of Guillaume Vacter and Beto Ydrach, with Vacter poised to be the first of the two back on the field.
That isn’t to say there won’t be an adjustment period as players return to the lineup and the group has to develop new chemistry as a collective group. But if there’s one thing Hounds teams have shown in recent seasons: It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.
