Riverhounds Notebook: It’s 99 wins at Highmark Stadium and counting

Photo courtesy Ed Thompson

The Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC are in the midst of a two match homestand that wraps up on Saturday night when they host Birmingham Legion at Highmark Stadium (7 p.m. kickoff), following a 1-o win vs Hartford in last Saturday’s home opener. 

The Hounds will be looking for their second straight win and the club’s 100th all-time victory at their current home field, Highmark Stadium — which players and fans alike like to refer to as the team’s fortress.

Look for a more detailed match preview and scouting report piece on Legion FC to come late Friday or early Saturday.

After a week of training and home cooking, the team should be slightly healthier heading into the fourth match of the season — but three players remain on the injury list, with two, Charles Ahl (ankle) and Bertin Jacquesson (hamstring), being out, while Perrin Barnes (hamstring) is listed as questionable.

After this week, the Hounds will have next weekend off, before preparing for a tough road match against Old Guard Rivals and the team that knocked them out of the USL Cup postseason last year, Charleston Battery.

In fact, home matches will be scarce following Saturday’s encounter, as the next three regular season matches are going to be on the road (also at Loudoun United FC and Detroit City FC, with the last match of April being the first Jägermeister Cup match).

The Hounds will also be awaiting to find out who and where they’ll play when they enter the US Open Cup in the National Tournament’s Third Round (matches will either be on Tuesday, April 15 or Wednesday, April 16).  It’s also very possible that US Open Cup match will be played on the road.

Therefore, the Hounds (1-1-1, 4 points) have been putting a lot of emphasis on coming out of this two-match swing to start the season at home with points in the bag.

After last week’s win, Head Coach Bob Lilley admitted that they were still tinkering with things, but were glad to get the result.

“It’s going to take time,” Lilley stated.

“With the injuries we’ve had so many different combinations, and we’ve been trying to figure out things in the final third. We have to work on that. We have to fix things in the back. But, early on, we were just focusing on the rhythm and playing through the lines. Once you think you have it solved, and you move on to something else, sometimes the equilibrium gets off and you have to go back. We’ll tinker a bit.”

Highmark Stadium Record Through the Years

The team began playing games at Highmark Stadium in 2013 — pretty much the same time I began covering the team on a regular basis either with Pittsburgh Sports Report, Pittsburgh Soccer Report (our predecessor site) and of course — Pittsburgh Soccer Now since 2018.

In all these years — we have covered every single Riverhounds home match in one way shape or form!  So, we can share some unique perspectives.  With that in mind, it will be fun in the coming weeks to tackle some of that a bit more in this column and in some of our upcoming Notebooks.

For this week — lets take quick glance back at how the Hounds have fared in the Mecca for Pittsburgh Soccer.

In line with the club’s fortunes during these years, the Hounds have only has three seasons where they posted a losing record at Highmark Stadium (2014, 2016 and 2017).

In the Bob Lilley era (since 2018), the team has boasted an impressive 62w-14l-34d regular season mark on the Mon, along with 5-1 record in US Open Cup competition at home during this stretch.

How’s this for a stat: the Hounds had more losses at home in the two previous seasons prior to Lilley’s arrival (16) than they’ve had since (14).

Looking back over the years, here’s a quick snapshot at the club’s record at Highmark:

Total Record at Highmark (including all competitions) — 88 wins, 47 losses, 54 draws

• 2024  7w-4l-6d
• 2023  13w-1l-3d   (Players Shield)
• 2022   9w-3l-5d
• 2021    9w-3l-4d
• 2020   5w-1l-2d  (shortened season due to COVID-19)
• 2019   10w-0l-7d (1st place in Eastern Conference)
• 2018    9w-2l-7d
• 2017    4w-7l-5d
• 2016    4w-9l-2d
• 2015     6w-2l-6d
• 2014     5w-7l-2d
• 2013     6w-3l-5d

In addition the above cumulative total which amounts to 88 regular season wins, the Hounds have also posted one USL Championship playoff win and nine US Open Cup wins (2013, 2014 [2], 2015 [2], 2019 [2], 2022, 2023 [2] at Highmark Stadium.   The Hounds have three playoff losses at Highmark (2018, 2019 and 2023) and two losses in the Open Cup (2016 to amateur side Landsdowne Bhoys and 2018 to FC Cincinnati).

In the next couple of months, Riverhounds’ Notebook will be highlighting and ranking some of the Hounds’ biggest wins at Highmark during this time.

Hounds pass test, but still too early to tell if they can master breaking teams down consistently

The Hounds broke the deadlock against Hartford on Saturday in a match that dragged to the 75th minute with just one shot on target for both sides thanks to Danny Griffin’s heroics.

‘Tinkering’ Riverhounds manage three points in home opener against Hartford

Still, the goal didn’t really open the floodgates for more.  They were effective in seeing the match out and continuing to limit Hartford’s chances.

In recent years, some teams have opted to let the Hounds play, turning the tables and sitting back. More often than not, Pittsburgh didn’t have the patience nor ability to break teams down in the final third. The most glaring example of this was their home playoff loss to Detroit when they were the top-seed in the playoffs in 2023.

Now that the Hounds are showing they are one of the best possession units in the league through three matches (yes — still a small sample size but they’re fourth in total passes and 10th in passing accuracy), they’re going to have to create more chances with more pressure — and as Lilley demands — get more runners into the box.  Getting six shots a match isn’t going to be enough to win on a consistent basis, even if half of those chances are on frame (which was the case on Saturday).

With Jacquesson, Sample and Ahl yet to break into the starting lineup due to injuries, this team has more players who can help at the point of the attack in breaking teams down.

There will likely be another player signing or two to come as well.

So, to reiterate what was said in this column even after last week’s loss at San Antonio, this team is still very much a work in progress.

In the home opener, they took a positive step forward and gave the home fans a big W.

PSN’s Coverage of Pittsburgh vs Birmingham

Look for full team coverage to come at Highmark Stadium from Colton Coreschi, Rachael Kriger and Ed Thompson on Saturday.