For the third time in three weeks, Chattanooga FC defeated Rocket City United 2-0. The poor Huntsville team has to be glad they’ve seen the last us (as opponents at least, we hope to grace their stadium later this summer to compete in the NPSL National Championships). And boy do we have a solid average against them, no goals allowed at all and a nice two-for per game, plus 6 in goal differential at the end of it.
We thought the team looked highly motivated and very sharp for their third match in 8 days. The loss in Pittsburgh seems to have made our boys all the more determined to win the conference again this year. And it will continue to take good performances like this past Saturday if we are to do it. Atlanta comes in to town this weekend and is one heck of a team, and then we still have two matches against the enigmatic newcomers, the Georgia Revolution, who (like us) have beaten and tied Atlanta — and are therefore a pretty good team. So we still have a tough row to hoe.
The overall play of the game was back and forth and really quite entertaining. Chattanooga FC seemed to keep the majority of the possession and we were pleased to see some very nice play in the midfield. José Robles, Mark Beattie, Cody McCoy and James Moore seemed to fall in to a nice rhythm, with several really pretty passing series. While we heard reports that the team felt they did not play as well Saturday as they did on Tuesday against the Riverhounds, we beg to differ. CFC looked like an organized and highly motivated team.
Two interesting twists from the game Saturday: 45 year old Richard Northcutt, a former Covenant College keeper and regional soccer coach, was recruited as our backup keeper. With Juan Robles injured and Ryan Peck out of town for work, we apparently had to scramble to get a number two keeper. Fortunately Thomas Hunter survived the scare (an apparent injury in the first half when he collided with an RCU striker and hurt his shin) and lasted the entire 90. The other surprise was to have third year team member Moises Drumond start as attacking midfielder. Moises has not been getting much play time this season, so the outright start was a bit of shake up. However, he performed very well and almost slipped in that bouncing header. Well done!
It was great to see the hard-working and high-flying Mark Sherrod get his second goal of the season on a wonderful diving header. And of course, the ever entertaining Chris Ochieng did not fail to disappoint as he split two defenders settling a pass, then rocketing a goal through the keeper’s hand.
Not making appearances were Michael Brooks (who had two in the last RCU match), as he was out of town and John Calderwood, who was inexplicably in the stands. Perhaps the coaches felt he performed poorly in Pittsburgh?
After all three games against Rocket City, we need to thank our stalwart defense for keeping them scoreless. Great work on some pretty tricky forwards there boys! But our Man of the Match award goes to Thomas Hunter for his great work in making saves and intimidating some of those attackers to shoot sooner than they would’ve liked… You get your 6th shutout of the season!
Now let’s bring that same intensity to a very tough match this Saturday against the Atlanta Silverbacks Reserves.
My son and I were at the last CFC vs Atlanta game. Wow, what a match. Huge, huge kudos to the Chattahooligans. You guys were truely a 12th man and helped our team win. The best part was it was heckling, but there was a standard of class. I look forward to the crowd this weekend as Atlanta will have payback on their mind. We will be there!