Chattanooga Football Club women play back to back

Saturday, June 7, 2014

photo Chattanooga's Brittney Reed and Kelly Downs dribble the ball down field past Mississippi's Jade Pennock during the women's Chattanooga Football Club versus Mississippi Fuego Football Club soccer game at Finley Stadium on May 18, 2014, in Chattanooga.

Patrick Winecoff and the first-year Chattanooga Football Club women's soccer team got the result they wanted last week with a 2-1 road win over the Knoxville Force.

They are hoping for similar outcomes this weekend.

The Chattanooga side (1-2) plays the Alabama FC tonight in Birmingham and hosts the Georgia Revolution at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Finley Stadium. Chattanooga plays the same teams next weekend, hosting Alabama FC on Friday night and visiting the Revolution on Sunday afternoon.

Alabama FC is 2-0, with wins over the Revolution and the Mississippi Fuego FC, which stole a 3-2 victory over CFC on May 18 with a goal in the final seconds. Duke University junior midfielder Toni Payne has scored three of the Birmingham club's five goals so far this season.

The Revolution will present a different challenge, as they are 0-4 heading into the Saturday matchup.

"We've been able to establish a very good tempo in training, and that's carried us into warmups and into the match," Winecoff said.

"It's hard to say anything about how Alabama plays and speak as to what they are like."

His team will have a quick turnaround, driving back to Chattanooga immediately after the 8:30 EDT Alabama match and resting during the day Saturday. Winecoff said there will be a few women playing Saturday night "that won't play Friday." He's hoping for the three points that come from a win in both matches but admitted that earning a win and a tie (one point) would be a solid result.

"We want to stay away from playing people too many minutes, because we don't want to get hurt," Winecoff said."We're not sitting back, though. We're going to go forward, attack and score some goals, because that's how we play.

"If we could get some points this weekend, that would be great. Six would be really good, but if we can earn four points this weekend, I'll sleep well on Saturday night."

Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6311. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.