Sporting Club Jacksonville rallies past Pittsburgh for first USL win

Sporting Club Jacksonville finally turned a monthslong grind into a result Wednesday night, rallying past Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC 2-1 at Hodges Stadium for the first USL Championship victory in club history. The win snapped a 15-game league winless streak and gave the first-year expansion side the kind of finish that can change how a season feels, not just how it looks in the standings.

Pittsburgh struck first in the 29th minute when Trevor Amann finished a combination with Eliot Goldthorp, and the Riverhounds carried that lead into halftime. Jacksonville came out sharper after the break, and the change was immediate: Edgardo Rito started finding space on the flank, and his low cross set up Kieran Sadlier to force the equalizer after a block and a bounce in front of goal. The comeback was completed in the 78th minute when Ahmad Al-Qaq attacked the left side of the box and the ball took a decisive deflection off Victor Souza for the own goal that settled it.

Rito was the engine throughout. He finished with six chances created and completed 36 of 39 passes, a clean attacking performance that mattered because Jacksonville had spent much of the season short on invention and short on reward. Goldthorp was active for Pittsburgh, too, with four chances created and 17 of 22 passes completed in the final third, but the visitors could not stop the game from slipping once Jacksonville started winning the second balls and getting runners into the box.

The result carried extra weight because Pittsburgh had entered at 6-5-2 and sixth in the Eastern Conference, while Jacksonville had come in at 0-11-4 with a league-high 41 goals conceded. It was also a reversal from March 28, when Pittsburgh beat Jacksonville 3-2 at Highmark Stadium after building a 3-0 lead and surviving the response. This time, the expansion side finished the job, and the Riverhounds lost after scoring first for the first time since Oct. 4, 2025, against Miami FC.

For Sporting Club Jacksonville, founded in 2020 by a local ownership group and named with First Coast community input in 2023, the first league win arrived after the club had already claimed its first win in the Prinx Tires USL Cup. This one counted differently. It came in the league, against a playoff-positioned opponent, and after a second half that looked nothing like the first. It was the sort of result expansion teams point to when the schedule turns toward the back half and suddenly feels survivable.