Game Report: Chattanooga Red Wolves 4-1 Birmingham Legion WFC

Legion WFC ended its season-opening road stretch on a down note, losing 1-4 to the Chattanooga Red Wolves Sunday evening.

Or night, rather, given that the game was delayed two hours due to lightning. That may have contributed to the team’s performance, but possibly less so than the quality and style of the opposition. The Red Wolves have been impressive so far this season and almost certainly because their very physical play is simply overwhelming other teams.

For the first ten minutes the teams played fairly evenly, though, but when Chattanooga broke through in the 11th minute the wheels fell off the bus. The Legion defense looked snakebit after that and the midfield was unable to find any useful penetration. By half time the team was down 2 goals, which got twice as bad in the first few minutes of the second half and Legion WFC found themselves down 0-4.

At that point they seemed to wake up and figured out that they had to match the Red Wolves physically. The ref was letting the teams play, by and large, and once Legion cottoned to that it was a very different game, and not because the Red Wolves decided to sit on that lead.

In the 57th, just 3 minutes after the final Red Wolves goal Maddie Massie found the net with a beautifully executed header. From that point on the Three Sparks dominated the game, piling up a ton of shots, although they were unable to convert again. One player who stood out in that final stretch was Jasmine Greene (#26) who was an absolute terror on the left wing. Apologies to her, by the way, for misidentifying her as Kaydence Ramirez on Twitter last night, but that’s the name on the Legion website for that number on the roster.

This was also a weird one to watch as there was no sound at all and the camera, which was positioned behind a railing with two high posts at each end and barely a few feet from the touchline made for some bizarre viewing angles. Better than nothing, I guess.

The ladies now get to play at home for the first time and will do so in a double-header at Protective this Wednesday kicking off at 3:30pm against South Georgia Tormenta. That and the other remaining 7 games on the schedule will all be played by July 2nd, which will be tough, although 6 of those are at home and one of the two away games is at Huntsville (who are 0-4-0) to close the regular season.