Historic night in Charleston sees Battery advance

Myers records historic hat trick: Battery cruise 4-0 into next round of US Open Cup

The Lamar Hunt US Open Cup match Tuesday night at Patriots Point was a historic moment for MD Myers as he wrote his name into the US Open Cup history books with a hat trick to power his Charleston Battery over visiting South Georgia Tormenta. The final score was 4-0 in favor of the Battery.

Myers is the only player in the modern era of the Open Cup to record hat tricks in back-to-back tournaments and only the third player in the modern era to have more than one hat trick in the tournament. In 2024, Myers scored his first hat trick versus this same South Georgia Tormenta franchise in the Round of 32.

“It’s exciting, before the game today I was thinking it would be hard to top what I did last year against Tormenta,” said Battery forward MD Myers after the game. “The first goal came and I was kind of just hanging around the net. Then a couple more, easy goals landed at my feet. I’m just happy to help the team win. I’m a poacher around the goal, I just like to get in the box for one-time finishes. It was just all working for me tonight.”

Charleston applied tremendous pressure on the visitors to open the match but were unable to find a breakthrough in the opening minutes in the concentrated, organized Tormenta defense. Battery forward Jackson Conway provided the best chance for the hosts on a breakaway dribble that forced onrushing Tormenta keeper Austin Pack to smother the shot at the 15-minute mark. This play energized the Tormenta attack and flipped momentum in favor of the visitors over the next period of the match.

Against this run of play Charleston won a corner kick and then converted the Tormenta clearance of the corner for the first goal of the night. Battery midfielder Chris Allen collected the ball at the top of the box, faked a shot, and then cut sharply to his right where he ripped a shot that deflected off a Tormenta defender. The deflected ball looped up and over the crowded box and nestled in the lower left corner of the goal for the 1-0 advantage in the 32^nd minute.

Tormenta looked to get a life-line back into the match just before the half as they won a penalty in the 45^th minute. The resulting penalty was saved by the Battery keeper Christian Garner who guessed correctly diving to his right to turn away the low shot for a corner kick. The resulting Tormenta corner kick created a classic counter-attack opportunity and as the Battery cleared the ball they raced the length of the field and found MD Myers alone in the box for a one-time finish and the 2-0 lead at the half.

After the break it was all Charleston Battery and MD Myers was first to pounce on a loose ball inside the Tormenta box after the Tormenta keeper couldn’t hold onto a crossed ball to push the lead to 3-0 in the 52^nd minute.

Myers completed his historic hat trick in the 70^th minute as he was there again inside the Tormenta box to collect a ball parried away by the Tormenta keeper and one touch the ball into the net before the keeper could recover.

The Battery closed out the match and claimed the 4-0 victory over Tormenta.

“I think the score-line was a little bit flattering for us overall because it nearly 1-1 for the entire first half,” said Battery Coach Ben Pirmann. “Credit to Tormenta, they played a good game, but in the end of it I think we did a lot of good movements and selfless attacks to create those chances and finish them off. It was good to see MD (Myers) bang in some goals and for Chris (Allen) get his first (goal) for the club in his third season and a younger player, Viggo (Ortiz Cordova) making his debut. A good performance, and with these tournaments, it’s kind of chaos, you never know how it’s going to play out, so we’ll take it and advance and turn our attention to league play on Saturday.”

The Battery advance to the Round of 32 and will find out their MLS opponent in Thursday’s draw.