Chattanooga FC back into NPSL national semis after shootout win over Miami
The boys in blue are two wins away from being golden.
Chattanooga FC needed some 130 minutes of soccer plus a penalty kick shootout, but earned another National Premier Soccer League (NPSL) South Region championship by outlasting Miami United FC on Saturday night at Finley Stadium.
CFC (15-2-2), who still has yet to lose to another NPSL side this season, will host the Sonoma County Sol (10-4-2) in one of this Saturday’s national semifinals. The Sol, from Santa Rosa, Cal., bested Albion SC Pros, 1-0, in their regional final and is the No. 4 seed in the semis.
Seeding is based on the average number of points each team earned in league matches this season. Teams get three points for a win and one for a tie.
Chattanooga FC is the overall No. 1 seed for the semifinals and would once again host the national final if they are victorious on Saturday. The national finals are slated for Saturday, Aug. 6.
The other semifinal will see the No. 2-seeded Clarkston SC Eagles (N.Y.) host No. 3 AFC Cleveland (Ohio).
After a physical 90 minutes of scoreless football, the two teams were forced to play two 15-minute overtime sessions, which became nearly 40 extra minutes once stoppage time was added.
Chattanooga FC’s Kieran Bywater missed a chance to give his team a 1-0 lead when he sailed a penalty kick high at the end of the first overtime session. The home team dodged a bullet in the second OT when a Miami blast hit the top of the crossbar and bounced straight down without crossing the line.
The match would eventually go to a shootout where CFC keeper Gregga Hartley came up big with a save in the second round of kicks. Hartley was called on one final time in the final round, this time to take a kick, and the England native put it away to give his team a 5-3 win in the shootout.
It marked the fifth South Region title for CFC in the past seven years and they will be looking for a fifth trip to the national finals and their third in a row. They have yet to win an NPSL national title.
The other big story of the night was the crowd. A social media push to fill “Fort Finley” with 10,000 fans was successful as an announced crowd of 10,104 was the second-largest in Chattanooga FC history.
The top all-time crowd to see a CFC game in Chattanooga was 18,227 for the 2015 national final against the New York Cosmos B. It was also the largest attendance ever for an amateur soccer game in North America.
CFC will have one extra warm-up match before Saturday’s semifinal when Middlesbrough FC of England will bring its U21 developmental squad to Finley for an exhibition match this Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.
Middlesbrough FC, which was founded in 1876, was one of the founding members of the English Premier League in 1992. They earned a promotion back to the EPL for the 2016-2017 season after finishing second in their league this past season.