The Charleston Battery were dealt a 3-1 defeat against Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC in Week 24 of the USL Championship regular season at F.N.B. Stadium on Saturday. The hosts scored twice in the opening 16 minutes of the game, but Charleston looked to claw back on a goal by Douglas Martinez in the 18th minute. However, a third goal for the Hounds and an eventual red card to Martinez in the second half made it a bridge too far for the Battery. <\/p>\n
Pittsburgh managed to open the scoring in the 2nd minute via Trevor Aman for a 1-0 lead. <\/p>\n
Goalkeeper Luis Zamudio made a big save in the 8th minute to deny Eliot Goldthorp and prevent the hosts from doubling their lead inside less than 10 minutes of play. <\/p>\n
The Hounds added to their lead in the 16th minute when Danny Griffin made the score 2-0.<\/p>\n
Charleston, however, responded almost immediately when Douglas Martinez struck back in the 18th minute to cut the deficit to 2-1. Jeremy Kelly led the advance down the pitch and played the ball forward to Nathan Messer, who sent in a cross into the box. Martinez charged to the unclaimed ball from the right side and smashed it first-time off the bounce, placed perfectly inside the opposite post. <\/p>\n
Martinez\u2019s goal was his second of the year and Messer\u2019s assist was his sixth of the season. It also marked the Battery\u2019s 18th goal scored during the first half, the most in the league, as of writing. <\/p>\n
In the 41st minute, Graham Smith made a critical sliding block to stop Aman\u2019s shot and bid to restore the Hounds\u2019 two-goal lead. <\/p>\n
Pittsburgh took the 2-1 lead into the break, however, the Battery held nearly 74% possession in the first stanza. <\/p>\n
Play resumed in the second half with the game still within Charleston\u2019s reach. Miguel Berry entered in place of Maalique Foster for the night\u2019s first swap. <\/p>\n
The Battery were on the front foot to start the second half, as Emilio Ycaza and Kelly each recorded two shots in the opening 10 minutes.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh managed to score a third in the 61st minute via Victor Souza to go up 3-1.<\/p>\n
Charleston were reduced to 10 men in the 81st minute when Martinez was shown his second yellow card, and subsequent red card, of the evening. <\/p>\n
Pittsburgh saw out the 3-1 victory from there, snapping the Battery\u2019s two-game winning streak in August in the 49th all-time meeting between the clubs. <\/p>\n
The result moves Charleston\u2019s record to 10W-7L-3D (33pts), placing them in second place in the Eastern Conference, as of writing. <\/p>\n
Head Coach Ben Pirmann and goalkeeper Luis Zamudio addressed the match after the final whistle, with key quotes to follow.<\/p>\n
Coach Pirmann on the difficulties posed by Pittsburgh from the very start\u2026<\/p>\n
Number one, credit to Pittsburgh, they deserved to win. They were clearly the better team, better-coached team, and outworked us in a tough environment. So, got to give them credit. <\/p>\n
But I think it was more about us and the silly mistakes that we\u2019ve been making for the same seven months. We conceded an incredibly soft goal. We don\u2019t defend the direct ball, so we\u2019re down two minutes in four years in a row, and then we start playing a little bit higher in their half.<\/p>\n
This was about us doing our jobs. This was about us playing the game in their end, and we didn\u2019t want to do that. We\u2019re just not good enough at it on the road, and we don\u2019t do it. So, we\u2019ve got to start doing it better and fix it. <\/p>\n
Coach Pirmann on the lessons learned from the match\u2026<\/p>\n
We\u2019re fine at home, I don\u2019t want to say we\u2019re incredible, but we have a better identity. We play with certain bravery. I think when we go on the road, we\u2019re entitled, we\u2019re soft, we don\u2019t win duels, we don\u2019t make the right selfless movements or do things to win ugly. If we try, we\u2019re just not active enough at it, which is probably on me. <\/p>\n
But also, I think there\u2019s a simplicity when we move the ball and play the ball forward. When we play the game in the opposing team\u2019s end, we\u2019re a lot better at it. So, we battled back and were at 2-1. We battered him in the first 15 minutes to start the second half, but we don\u2019t make the play at midfield, and then we have to defend three corners. And two or three times in a row on the corners, we don\u2019t make the play. So it\u2019s as simple as that. We have to be stronger mentally and physically tougher. <\/p>\n
Zamudio on his takeaways from the game\u2026<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t think it was a bad first half from us, but the first two goals were just letting our emotions get the best of us. Tough place to play, tough environment, but we have to handle our emotions better and just deal with it. I put my hand up for the first two goals, I feel like I could do better on both of them. But what I will say is that it was a good reaction from the boys to get the goal back and keep us in the game.<\/p>\n
And then in the second half, we conceded that goal on the set piece to make it 3-1, and that basically killed us. But, thankfully, we play back home next week, so we just have to focus on that now.<\/p>\n
Zamudio on the challenges the Battery faced this evening\u2026<\/p>\n
I think just Pittsburgh being very direct, playing on a small field. We played them twice at home, so we had the big field to our advantage. This time, they played to their strengths, and they executed better than us. And at the end of the day, they scored the chances, and we didn\u2019t. So they just played better football than us, and that\u2019s why they won the game.<\/p>\n
We have to start from the back. We have to keep a clean sheet, try to not concede goals, and we\u2019re going to have chances, especially at home. So, we just gotta lock down defensively and be focused on set pieces in every single moment and not assume calls like offside or fouls are going to happen. I think the thing we should focus mostly on is concentration, trying to stay in the game, and, as I said earlier, handling our emotions as best as we can.<\/p>\n
The Battery\u2019s next match will be at home against Miami FC on Sat., Aug. 22, as the club celebrates Back to School Night at Patriots Point.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 WCSC. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Charleston Battery were dealt a 3-1 defeat against Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC in Week 24 of the USL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-266219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}