Rhode Island FC Beats Charleston Battery to Earn USL Championship Finals’ Berth

The Draw Kings Are Your USL Eastern Conference Champions

Rhode Island FC — an expansion team which started its inaugural season with only one win and just twelve total points from its first fourteen matches, has beaten three of the best four teams in the USL Championship’s Eastern Conference — and will represent the East in the club’s first-ever USL Championship Final. In doing so, Rhode Island has made history as the first ever expansion club to do so in the USL Championship’s history. They beat Charleston Battery by a score of 2-1 to earn that berth.

Charleston were the second best team in the entire league this season and they were last year’s Eastern Conference representative in the Finals. Like Louisville City FC, who were the best team in the league before Rhode Island FC beat them at home last week, the Battery had only suffered one home loss all season. Unlike Louisville, that loss did not come at the hands of RIFC as Charleston and Rhode Island had drawn both of their previous matches.

None of that seemed to bother the Tide though, as Rhode Island FC took a two goal lead tonight and never looked even remotely like losing it despite the presence of Charleston talisman striker Nick Markanich. Markanich has set the USL Championship’s record for goals in a season with 30 and is bound for Spanish Second Divison side CD Castellon with the transfer to take effect in the new year. Rhode Island held him entirely quiet tonight, a remarkable send-off for perhaps the league’s most talented striker.

RIFC are now nine matches unbeaten, and in that span have outscored their opponents — a schedule which includes three playoff matches and four playoff teams — by a combined score of 25-8. That nine match stretch sets a new club record, breaking the previous tie held at eight.

The match got off to a hot start when Charleston Battery created an early opportunity on a counterattack down the left-hand side, with midfielder Aaron Molloy delivering a cross to striker Jackson Conway, whose shot missed just wide of the right post. In the 17th minute, midfielder Juan David Torres attempted a long-range effort that also went wide. Three minutes later, Rhode Island responded with their first notable chance, as a quick transition set up striker Albert “Chico” Dikwa for a shot that narrowly slid past the left post.

Rhode Island FC finally got on the score sheet first in the 43rd minute, as midfielder Clay Holstad (who is famous for the long shots he takes at goal) took an equally impressive long throw-in delivering it all the way into the six yard box and to the head of defender Karifa Yao. The center back nodded the ball to Zach Herivaux who ended up scoring the opener. Nothing much more of note happened in the dying minutes of the half and the sides went into the locker room with the visitors leading 1-0.

Rhode Island FC nearly doubled its lead only six minutes into the second half, when Chico fired a volley home via a header from defender Frank Nodarse, but the referee ruled that Nodarse had committed a foul in the build-up. That didn’t end up mattering very much, though, as it was only two minutes later that Holstad played forward Noah Fuson open down the left-hand side, and Fuson dribbled past his man and blasted his shot into the roof of the net to give RIFC the 2-0 lead.

From this point it became clear that the home team were very much chasing the game, and falling ever closer to elimination. They piled on the pressure accordingly and achieved a number of chances as a result. The most important came in the 61st minute as Torres curled a beautiful and very long distance free kick over the outstretched gloves of RIFC goalkeeper Koke Vegas to shrink the Tide’s lead to 2-1. In the end, however, that shrinking proved meaningless, as RIFC held firm and saw out the match at that score.

Rhode Island FC faces one final away match in their quest to become the league’s first-ever expansion champions. The Tide will play Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC next Saturday, November 23rd, at 12 pm ET. The two clubs have only met once this season, as they beat Rhode Island 3-1 in Colorado on May 17th. Rhode Island FC will look to avenge that loss en route to becoming league champions.