Overflow crowd watches Pittsburgh Riveters women's soccer team debut with scoreless draw

An overflow crowd at Highmark Stadium on a picture-perfect Friday night came to witness the debut of the Pittsburgh Riveters pre-professional women’s soccer club.

A standing-room-only crowd of 6,077 witnessed the Riveters play the Cleveland Force to a scoreless draw in a USL W League game. It was the fourth-largest crowd in stadium history.

The Riveters compete in a league with more than 90 clubs spanning four conferences with a total of 15 divisions. The Riveters, along with five other teams, play in the Great Forest Division of the Central Conference with teams in Erie, Buffalo and Rochester. There is another women’s team in the division that plays in the North Hills of Pittsburgh called Steel City FC.

Riveters coach Scott Gibson pulled together a roster composed of many former Riverhounds youth soccer players. The anticipation and wait for their 10-game season was finally over.

After opening ceremonies, each club got out to a slow start as action was limited in the first 20 minutes of play.

In the 24th minute, Riveters midfielder Carola Fontan took the first shot on goal in team history. Her right-footed attempt just above the top of the 18 rang clean off the crossbar.

After a scoreless first half, the Riveters came out quick in the 46th minute when midfielder Kennedy Neighbors just missed on a ball that came back into the box. Her redirect went just wide of the far post.

Less than a minute later it was team captain Tessa Dellarose of Brownsville serving up a corner kick that got knocked around the inside of the 18. Riveters defender Piper Coffield of Mars ripped home a volley that found the back of the net. However, the home team was offside, taking the goal off the board.

Neighbors was busy again in the 58th minute when she found a ball that got knocked away and came towards the inside of the attacking 18 box. Her right-footed shot was low and to the left of Force goaltender Griselda Revolorio.

Cleveland’s best chance of the night came in the 67th minute when Isabella Antonio watched her header come clean off the crossbar, out of the reach of Riveters goaltender Pauline Nelles, who watched helplessly as the ball eventually fell out of play.

Dellarose got a clean chance in the 83rd minute, but Revolorio of Cleveland was perfectly positioned to make an easy save. It was the final flurry of action on the night.

Despite not recording a win, Gibson spoke about the positives he saw out of his new team.

“It’s been a whirlwind of a week,” he said. “I thought we should have won. We had put on a lot of pressure. Got a few balls across the box. It was a good effort. Our team behind the scenes, they did a lot of work to get us to this game. It’s hard to put a team together from scratch. We must get it off the ground and jell fast.”

With the time constraints the club faced pulling a team together, Gibson said the focus over the next week will be to train together and build from today’s draw.

“Some of them haven’t played in a game with that type of pressure,” Gibson said afterwards. “Tessa (Dellarose) is just an unbelievable human being. She was the first call we made. She’s a leader and brings experience with her. She’s an amazing person.”

The Riveters will return to action next Saturday when they travel to Rochester, N.Y., to face Flower City 1972.