Two match weekend for the Battery

Battery will wear pink Saturday night

Charleston have two matches this weekend.  Friday night brings on the Charlotte Eagles away and then back home on Saturday night for the Pittsburgh Riverhounds.  Back to back matches are rare in most parts of the world but nearly a financial requirement here in the United States as an effort to cut travel cost. 

Charlotte are still looking for their first win (0-2-1, 1point) of the season and will be looking to revenge the earlier 1-0 defeat to the Battery.

Charleston (2-0-1, 6 points) looked out of sorts in the earlier match between the two but seemingly have turned it around and are looking better.  The match will be played in Rock Hill, South Carolina  at Winthrop College, about 40 min from Charlotte's "home" stadium.  No reason was given in the Charlotte press release but the location is closer for fans that are traveling up from Charleston and it big improvement over the high school stadium Charlotte normally plays at.  The biggest advantage is that it will be a natural turf as opposed to Charlotte's old synthetic turf.  Players have said in the past that it was hard and the ball seemed to have strange properties, bouncing awkwardly and inconsistent speed on the ground.

The match will also be the first match of the Southern Derby Cup between Charleston, Charlotte and Wilmington.  Look for an article on the Southern Derby coming soon but for now here is the wikipedia link with the history and details on the competition. 

Predicting the squad is tricky in these back to back situations.   You would assume Auggie will rest some players for one game to be fresh for the second match the next night.  But who will they be?  I feel we will see a similar starting line up as we have in the past couple matches, but with two or three changes and some liberal subsitutions coming in maybe as early as half time.

What we do know is Andrew Dykstra will be out for a couple more weeks.  He injured his foot in training prior to the Richmond match.  Armstrong was rumored to be nursing a calf strain and Jon Gruenewald, who hasn't featured this year, is still recovering from a sports hernia.

The match will not be shown on USLlive but will be available to listen to online via the Battery website or locally on 1340am. Pregame starts about 6:45pm.

Saturdays match against the Pittsburgh Riverhounds at Blackbaud Stadium is being promoted heavily and looks to have a good attendance.  Pittsburgh will bring with them former Battery players, Jason Kutney and Justin Evans, now head coach and a new daddy!

It will be the Battery's Kick of a Cure match and the Battery will wear a special pink jersey for the match to raise money for the Susan G. Komen fund.  There will be several other Pink initiatives, including pink food and drink specials, pink lines on the field and the auction following the match of the players jerseys.

You can watch Saturday's match live on www.usllive.com.  Kick-off is at 7:30pm EST

The Battery will looking for six points from these two matches to keep up with league leaders Richmond.

Tailgate Info

The Regiment will be tailgating prior to the match near the East Stand Entrance from about 5 pm.  Feel free to join us.  The Regiment will be providing brats, hot dogs and sausages (and maybe some other goods!),  just bring a side dish or some beer for the community cooler.