It has not been easy for Decatur FC coach Campbell Chapman to wrangle his roster this year. College coaches are increasingly demanding that their players return at the beginning of July, which caused the WPSL to compress its 2026 schedule, but it also forced Chapman to play with a decreasing number of players.
“The colleges actually have the players back in early,” Chapman said. “They’re back on July 15…So we’re losing these girls now to the colleges. In the past, it wasn’t too bad because they didn’t go back until the first week in August.”
But in Saturday’s game against Georgia Impact, Chapman’s team rose to the occasion in a 2-1 victory over their arch rivals.
“It was an excellent all-around team performance,” Chapman said.
Rivals
As it always is between these two teams, the game was a battle from the outset.
Georgia Impact allowed Decatur the space it needed to run its offense, and Decatur settled into a good rhythm. Impact goalkeeper Jaddah Foos was once again stellar, the Decatur native stymying her local team’s attacking effort. At halftime, the game was tied 0-0.
Second-half action
Decatur wouldn’t be denied for long. Merely seven minutes into the second half, midfielder Emma Chapman passed the ball over to fellow midfielder Allie Planeaux, who drove it forty yards upfield. Planeaux crossed it into the box where midfielder Maggie Wadsworth was battling with an Impact player. Unfortunately for the Impact, its defender’s efforts would instead send the ball past Foos into their net for an own goal.
Up 1-0 on their rivals, Decatur was buoyed, though the game was turning physical as Emma received a yellow for an elbow. Defender Jordyn Crosby was unfazed, turning the resulting throw-in into an excellent cross-field ball right to Planeaux, who was wide open and had all the time she needed to shoot the ball across her body and into the top right corner of the net. Foos had no chance, and Decatur was up 2-0.
“I thought Jordan put a lovely assist on her for the second goal,” Campbell said. “It was quality. A proper goal.”
Crosby hadn’t played before this game due to conflicts in her schedule, but she was undeniably influential in the victory, playing all 90 minutes. Other players who haven’t received much time contributed as well, including midfielder Alexa Ibarra and defender Njeri Butts.
“[Ibarra’s] been a training player and we signed her, and she came in,” Campbell said. “We only had three subs tonight. We’re missing some key players — a few girls got injured, and a few girls are unavailable. Ibarra stepped up, [midfielder] Maya Zmistowski stepped up, Njeri Butts stepped up.”
The shutout wouldn’t last, however, as Decatur suffered a mishap of its own on an Impact long ball into the box.
Rather than grab the ball, goalkeeper Nikky Bidun attempted to punch it away from danger. However, she missed and accidentally made contact with her own defender, Jazmin Ferguson, instead. Ferguson fell, Bidun missed the ball, and it rolled into the net for an Impact goal.
But Decatur held on for the victory.
What’s ahead
If Decatur wins its final regular season game on Tuesday, June 30, at Knoxville, TN’s 865 Alliance, it should move into second place in the WPSL’s Southeastern conference, but it doesn’t appear that they are postseason-bound.
Still, Campbell is proud of his team’s efforts in the face of the changes forced by the college landscape and hopes to close out the season strong.
“We were always going to struggle — we know that going into the season — [to] have enough of the team that’s available to play [in the postseason],” Campbell said. “But we try to make it [the] best experience for the girls as possible. The postseason, we look at it like it’s not always going to be on our calendar.”
