Nigel Si­mon

So­ca War­riors duo, Ataulla Guer­ra and Ne­veal Hack­shaw were both on tar­get to lead Charleston Bat­tery to a 2-1 tri­umph over de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Louisville FC in the Unit­ed Soc­cer League on Sat­ur­day.

The 30-year-old Laven­tille-born Guer­ra opened the scor­ing as ear­ly as the fifth minute at MUSC Health Sta­di­um, Charleston, South Car­oli­na with his joint league-best tenth of the sea­son, lev­el with Den­mark’s Thomas Enevold­sen of Or­ange Coun­ty.

The 22-year-old Hack­shaw of La Hor­quet­ta then dou­bled the ad­van­tage in the 27th minute past Cana­da-born T&T goal­keep­er Greg Ran­jits­ingh, with his first ever USL goal in three sea­sons at the club.

Guer­ra was even­tu­al­ly re­placed in the 79th minute, while an­oth­er T&T play­er, 22-year-old Le­land Archer had a sol­id out­ing in de­fence.

With two min­utes left in the match, Tay­lor Mueller hand­ed Louisville a life­line when he con­ced­ed an own-goal, but in the end, Charleston held on for the win to go third in the East­ern Con­fer­ence with 32 points from 19 match­es, six be­hind Cincin­nati FC while Pitts­burgh River­hounds is sec­ond with 34 and two match­es in hand. Louisville re­mained fourth with 29 points from 17 match­es, one ahead of In­dy Eleven, the club of T&T duo, Car­lyle Mitchell and Nathan Lewis.

Eng­land-born T&T de­fend­er and for­mer Ar­se­nal youth play­er, Justin Hoyte had a sol­id show­ing at right back as Cincin­nati blanked Tam­pa Bay Row­dies 2-0 to ex­tend its un­beat­en streak to eight match­es, and record a sev­en shut-out as well on the sea­son.

Raleigh-born T&T mid­field­er An­dre For­tune and his North Car­oli­na picked up a point in a 1-1 draw with Beth­le­hem Steel.

How­ev­er, North Car­oli­na is sev­en points out of the play­offs in 13th spot with 20 points from 18 match­es, three ahead of T&T’s Mekeil Williams and the Rich­mond Kick­ers, 1-5 losers to New York Red Bulls II, on Fri­day night.

In the West­ern Con­fer­ence, na­tion­al de­fend­er, Shan­non Gomez had a dis­ci­plined per­for­mance at left back in help­ing the Sacra­men­to Re­pub­lic slip past Rox­bor­ough-born Ja­mal Jack and his Col­orado Springs.

The win lift­ed the Sacra­men­to Re­pub­lic to 36 points from 21 match­es in third, five adrift of lead­ers’ Re­al Mon­archs which has two match­es in hand, while Reno 1868 is sec­ond with 37 from 20 out­ings.

Col­orado Springs is ninth on the ta­ble, one spot out of the play­offs with 25 points from 21 match­es, three

Be­hind Fres­no FC.