Anna Korney, 16, scores twice as the Riveters beat Racing Louisville 5-0 for their first playoff win

PITTSBURGH. Sixteen-year-old Anna Korney scored twice as the Pittsburgh Riveters beat Racing Louisville FC 5-0 on Friday, July 3, at F.N.B. Stadium in the USL W League Central Conference semifinal. The win was the first playoff victory in club history. The Riveters (10-0-1), the No. 2 seed, had lost their only previous playoff match, in 2025, and Racing Louisville (6-2-2) was the No. 3 seed in its first meeting with the club.

Korney struck the underside of the crossbar in the ninth minute, and in the 21st minute she had the Riveters in front. Sabrina Bryan played her into the left side of the box, and Korney placed her shot in the bottom right corner for the first postseason goal in team history. Korney could have had a second before halftime. She got free on the left and circled the goalkeeper, and Louisville defender Juliet Strange cleared the ball off the line.

The second goal came at 45+1 minutes and belonged to the left back. Brielle LaBerge found Ellen Molloy in midfield and kept running. Molloy returned the ball, LaBerge went between two defenders into the box and finished in the same right corner as the opener. The goal was the first of the season for LaBerge.

“It means everything,” head coach Scott Gibson told Pittsburgh Soccer Now, on winning the club’s first postseason match. “We prepared better for this one, in terms of squad depth. The type of player we wanted to bring in. It showed tonight with another five-star performance.”

Korney hit the post two minutes into the second half, and in the 51st minute she scored again. Bella Vozar played her into the right side of the box, and Korney hit a hard shot that got under the goalkeeper. The goals took Korney to four for the season, in her first multi-goal game for the club. A minute later Tanum Nelson worked into the left side of the box and fed Bryan in front of the goal, and Bryan finished softly into the open part of the net for her fifth goal of the season. Four Riveters efforts struck the woodwork in the match.

Lexi Grundler made six saves and kept her sixth clean sheet in six starts for the club. Her best save came in the 69th minute, when she leaped to push a shot by Avery Krupp over the bar. Racing Louisville replaced goalkeeper Sophia Reeder with Adelle Finerty in the 71st minute, and neither account of the match states a save total for the Louisville goalkeepers. The Riveters played without Lola Abraham, who led the team with six assists in the regular season and appeared in neither the lineup nor the substitutes.

The fifth goal came from two substitutes in the 79th minute. Gabby Beinecke, who had entered in the 71st minute, played the ball in from the left side, and Lilly Bane, who had entered in the 61st, made a near-post run and turned it in.

The Riveters host top-seeded Minnesota Aurora FC in the Central Conference final on Sunday, July 5, at F.N.B. Stadium, with kickoff at 7 p.m. Aurora beat the Riveters 2-0 in the opening round of the 2025 playoffs.

Goals: Pittsburgh, Korney 21, Bryan; Pittsburgh, LaBerge 45+1, Molloy; Pittsburgh, Korney 51, Vozar; Pittsburgh, Bryan 52, Nelson; Pittsburgh, Bane 79, Beinecke. Halftime: Pittsburgh 2, Racing Louisville 0.