Decatur FC knocked off another Southeast Conference rival Sunday night with a 4-1 win over Chattanooga FC.
“It’s what we talked about before the game in the locker room,” Decatur FC assistant coach Jack Marchant said after the match. “It was about putting in a performance away from home because it’s the hardest thing to do in sports. And that was really the emphasis, and we can come away after 90 minutes knowing that we did that and thankfully, we got the result.”
The result was very much in question for the first half of the game. Early in the half, Emma Chapman threaded a neat pass up the right side to Breanna Barley, who ran onto the ball and placed it neatly in the corner of the goal. It was a beautiful play emblematic of the best of Decatur FC’s performances.
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Parts of the first half also illustrated some of Decatur’s season-long struggles. Goalkeeper Kaitlin Sinkler was tested several times and shortly after Chapman’s goal had to save a penalty kick after taking down an attacking Chattanooga player in the box. The Chattahooligans eventually netted a goal of their own late in the half off a chipped ball that went over most of the defense and eluded Sinkler.
“We executed the game plan brilliantly for 15 minutes,” Marchant said. “We scored a goal, went one-nil up, we recharged. And then we just took our foot off the gas and we allowed Chattanooga to get back in the game.”
But as the Black and Gold so often do, they found their footing with a burst of goals. Coming out of the locker room at halftime, Decatur looked like a team on a mission. Only two and a half minutes into the half, May el-Shami stole the ball from a Chattanooga player around the midfield line. El-Shami then dribbled the ball through Chattanooga FC’s defense and instead of passing it to an open teammate, opted to shoot it herself. The ball arced into the goal for el-Shami’s finest of the year and Decatur took a 2-1 lead. A mere minute later, Barley netted herself an assist as she crossed the ball across the goal to Carrie Consolino, who was wide open at the back door and knocked it home.
With that 3-1 lead, Decatur FC found their rhythm. The Black and Gold were constantly on the offensive in the second half, rarely allowing Chattanooga to clear the ball and consistently pressing deep. Goalkeeper Isabelle Lee was rarely tested in the half and the defense shut down any plays that looked dangerous from the Chattahooligans. In the 84th minute, Sarah Greiner received a long ball from her teammate and shot it past the Chattanooga keeper’s hands to seal the 4-1 win.
“We came out in the second half and five minutes into it we were three-one up,” Marchant said. “And the girls, to their credit, kept their foot on the gas and we really dominated the second half and really put the cherry on top of the cake with the fourth one.”
Decatur’s scoring in bunches has worked well for it thus far in the season. But as the Black and Gold approach their final two games against the two top-ranked teams in the Southeast Conference, the team will not be able to take their foot off the gas at all. They’ve shown they can before in wins with greater margins of victory. It’s up to them in these last two games to do the same.
Next Match
Decatur FC hosts Nashville Rhythm on Sat., June 29 at 7 p.m. Tickets here.
