Chattanooga Football Club's Luke Winter, right, drives the ball ahead of Mississippi Storm player Jonny Fairbairn on Saturday at Finley Stadium.Another night, another hat trick for Luke Winter.
The Chattanooga Football Club forward scored three goals Saturday in CFC's 6-2 rout of the Mississippi Storm at Finley Stadium. That came about 24 hours after the England native scored three at Rocket City United on Friday.
"It's nice I'm getting the chances that I'm getting, and my teammates are putting in some great crosses," Winter said. "I felt pretty good tonight, and I told someone earlier that I thought I could get another goal."
The England native, who plays collegiately for Tennessee Wesleyan, got three more. Winter has had a hat trick in his last three National Premier Soccer League games and is making CFC coach Bill Elliott look like a genius.
Elliott switched Winter from midfield to forward before the Myrtle Beach Mutiny game on June 9, and that was the start of Winter's hat trick trifecta.
"Always in our warmups and our practices he always seems to find goals, so I said, listen, we're going to make a change and I hope it works," Elliott said. "Obviously it has."
Winter's scoring spurt is something Elliott said he hasn't seen before.
"I don't even know if I've heard of that," Elliott said.
CFC is 4-1-2 and remains atop the standings in the NPSL Southeast Conference Western division with two games remaining. Winter is piling up the goals as his time with CFC comes to a close. His final game will be next week at the Georgia Revolution. After that he returns to England for his sister's wedding.
"It's going to [stink] to leave, definitely," he said. "We've got next week, and hopefully we can do well again."
Facing an overmatched Storm (1-5-0) squad, CFC jumped in front early and dominated the game. Winter put CFC up 1-0 in the fourth minute with a shot past Storm keeper Zach Wallace. Rafa Faria assisted on the goal and then made it 2-0 in the 15th minute with a score.
CFC had the ball in Storm territory nearly the entire half, and Winter got his second goal on a Carl Reynolds corner kick. Soon after, Faria blasted a shot from about 30 yards out to push the lead to 4-0.
The Storm salved something out of the half by scoring on a corner kick in stoppage time, but a Mississippi own goal off a Reynolds corner made it 5-1, and Winter completed the hat trick on a free kick before being subbed out in the 70th minute.