Pulse of Pittsburgh Soccer

Pulse of Pittsburgh Soccer: Fourth of July tradition returns in big way to Highmark Stadium as Riveters host W League playoff followed by Riverhounds

by
Pittsburgh Soccer Now
July 4, 2025

Photo courtesy Mark Goodman

The 2020 was very unusual season for the Riverhounds for a lot of reasons.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Riverhounds were forced to end one of their most established traditions from the club’s early Highmark Stadium era — playing home matches at Highmark Stadium.

This week, for the first time since 2020, soccer is back at Highmark Stadium and in an even bigger way — as the Riverhounds will host their regularly scheduled match vs USL Championship’s Western Conference leaders, New Mexico United, while the Riveters will be hosting W League’s Central Conference semifinal round matches. The W League doubleheader starts at 10:30 a.m. as Detroit City FC faces Kings Hammer, then the Riveters SC take on Minnesota Aurora at 1 p.m.

At the conclusion of those matches, Highmark Stadium will close its doors until 5:30 p.m., when they’ll reopen for the Hounds-New Mexico clash which kicks off at 7 p.m.

Also in action are Steel City men, who are coming down to the wire in the USL League Two regular season play, as they’ll face a rematch vs FC Buffalo at Founders Field on Wednesday night. Steel City (20 points, six matches played) hold a four point lead on Buffalo (16 points, five points played), so Wednesday’s contest will be important one as they seek to finish at the top of the table for the third straight season, and in their first season in League Two.

W League Semifinals ticket is good for both games, while the Riveters’ are selling a weekend bundle, as they’ll host the Final between the winners of Friday’s matches on Sunday, at 7 p.m. For more information about tickets, visit Riveters.com

For seven seasons, from 2013 through 2019, the Hounds played a home match before what was typically one of the largest crowds of each season, on July 4.

Having covered each of the first seven matches, you can read summaries of my coverage of those matches — many of them pretty memorable contests.