Change was theme for CFC
One rebuilt. Another built up.
This was a season of change for each of the Chattanooga Football Club programs, but now it’s over for both.
The CFC women lost their Women’s Premier Soccer League South Region semifinal Friday night, 6-2 to Pensacola FC, which beat the Florida Dutch Lions 2-0 Sunday at Finley Stadium to win the region championship and earn a spot in the national semifinals.
The CFC women flipped their roster in the offseason, and the results took them from one win in 2017 to eight wins and the Southeast Conference title this summer. Coach Erin Ridley was able to blend a mix of talented newcomers with some of the old guard — such as forwards Carlie Banks and former Soddy-Daisy standout Summer Lanter — to dominate conference competition before Friday’s loss to the 2017 national finalists.
“We can take a good perspective from this,” Ridley said. “We had a great season, and we can take a ton away from it. The girls that came back may not have believed me when I told them they were laying a foundation for this, but it happened. We said year two had to be better than year one. It was, and now we’ll look to get even better in year three.”
The CFC men’s season came to a crushing end in the National Premier Soccer League South Region’s Southeast Conference championship Saturday night at Finley, with the Atlanta Silverbacks winning a penalty-kick shootout 6-5 after the score was 0-0 through overtime.
The loss came in controversial fashion. CFC goalkeeper Phil D’Amico stopped kicks by Atlanta’s Yusuf Jalingo and David Koloko in the shootout, but he was whistled for moving prior to their attempts, with the referee awarding each another chance that was converted.
It was a season of transition for the CFC men. After four national runner-up finishes this decade, they took a step back in 2017, winning eight games and falling in the conference semifinals. The organization made wholesale changes to the roster, bringing in a number of new players this year.
Twelve players scored goals this season for CFC; only three — Jose Ferraz, Juan Hernandez and Luke Winter — have more than two seasons with the program.
“I think we did great,” CFC coach Bill Elliott said Saturday. “We’re very blessed to be in an environment like this. We have an organization with Tim Kelly, Sean McDaniel and other board members that set us up every year for success. Fans turn out in big numbers like nowhere else in the country, and we’re incredibly blessed to be here and be a part of it, and we’ll be back.
“I’ve been here seven years, and in that time we have five regular-season championships and five postseason conference championship tournament wins. That’s not by accident, and it’s not because of me. It’s because of everything going on — the Chattahooligans, management.
“We’ll be here. We’re still the benchmark that everybody else is aiming to be like.”