North Carolina FC fell to Chattanooga Red Wolves SC 3-1 on Saturday, April 9 at WakeMed Soccer Park.

Like its midweek Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup game, North Carolina (1-1-0, 3 pts) took a one-goal lead into the halftime break, but was unable to see out the win as the Red Wolves (1-0-1, 4 pts) bagged three goals in a ten-minute span to take all three points.

“It’s disappointing because I thought the first half was very, very well played by our guys, organized, focused,” said NCFC head coach John Bradford. “Obviously we get a good goal in transition and then keep a clean sheet. … The positives are that the first half was what we wanted it to be, but obviously the second half wasn’t.”

For the second time this season, Oalex Anderson and Garrett McLaughlin linked up for NCFC’s opening goal. Coming at the end of an excellent piece of build-up play, Anderson got free down the right wing and cut the ball back to McLaughlin for the finish. 

“We identified both those guys and we thought about how we wanted to play as a team formation and having both of them up front I think it’s gonna be really difficult for teams to deal with,” Bradford said. “Between the quality of both of them, I think they’re gonna help each other with assists and goals should be positive to watch.”

The game got progressively chippy throughout the first half, with referee JC Griggs handing out four yellow cards and needing to separate opposing players almost every time he blew the whistle. 

While the halftime break seemingly cooled off some of the hot headedness of the first half, Chattanooga came out of the break on fire, scoring three goals between the 60th and 70th minutes to flip the game completely on its head.

The visitors equalized in the 60th minute, with substitute Rey Ortiz scoring a wonderful curler into the top corner.

Josue Espana grabbed the go-ahead goal for the Red Wolves in the 67th minute, while Aaron Lombardi made it 3-1 in the 70th.

Bradford attributed some of Chattanooga’s second-half success to self-inflicted errors, with NCFC playing across the goal on goal kicks and taking an extra touch when players should have gone with one in the lead up to the first two goals.

North Carolina will look to bounce back from the back-to-back losses on Saturday, April 16, when it hosts Greenville Triumph SC.