2025 USL CHAMPIONS🏆
2023 Players' Shield Winners 🛡️
Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC was founded on March 11, 1998, by Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania native Paul Heasley. The team’s emergence ended the sport’s 12-year hiatus in the city at the professional level after the Pittsburgh Spirit of the Major Indoor Soccer League folded in 1986.
Heasley’s inspiration for the team formed when his son, Lucas, began seriously playing soccer in the late 1990s. As there were no local role models for Lucas to look up to, Heasley’s aim was to create a club embodying the character of Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania that could fuel the ambitions of youngsters in the region and give them a pathway to become professional soccer players.
This vision was realized during the 1999 USL draft when Peters Township native Justin Evans was selected as the Riverhounds’ first player. The team compiled a 16-12 record in its inaugural regular season, playing its home matches at Bethel Park High School.
In 2004, Heasley sold the Riverhounds. The team subsequently underwent a number of venue and ownership changes before landing at Highmark Stadium for the 2013 season.
Current owner Tuffy Shallenberger took control of the Riverhounds and Highmark Stadium in 2013.
The Riverhounds also operate a thriving youth academy with locations in Pittsburgh and Connellsville.
Charleston Battery is an American professional soccer club based in Charleston, South Carolina. Founded in 1993, the team plays in the United Soccer League and, along with the Richmond Kickers, is the oldest continuously operating professional soccer club in the United States. In 1999, Charleston Battery moved into what is now known as MUSC Health Stadium, becoming the first non-Major League Soccer professional club in the United States to build its own stadium. Charleston Battery is one of the most successful lower division soccer teams in the nation, having previously won the USISL Pro League in 1996, the USL A-League in 2003, and the final season of the USL Second Division in 2010. In 2012, the team won the USL Pro Championship.