Rhode Island FC’s season ended Friday night the same way it did a year ago: on penalty kicks at Charleston Battery.
The seventh-seeded Ocean State club led second-seeded Charleston until the fourth and final minute of second-half stoppage time, when Miguel Berry poked in a rebound at the far post to force extra time. Charleston won the shootout 5-4 in sudden death to take the Eastern Conference quarterfinal.
RIFC dominated the opening half hour at Patriots Point, outshooting the Battery 10-0 over the first 30 minutes against the league’s hottest attack. Amos Shapiro-Thompson forced a low save from goalkeeper Luis Zamudio in the sixth minute, and Jojea Kwizera’s cross nine minutes later found Stas Korzeniowski, whose volley cleared the bar.
The breakthrough came in the 28th minute. Charleston fouled while defending an RIFC corner, and Zamudio saved Kwizera’s penalty — but Kwizera reached the rebound first and buried it from close range.
Charleston’s best first-half chance came four minutes later, when a through ball found Maalique Foster unmarked. The Battery’s leading scorer slipped a shot past Koke Vegas, but a sliding Karifa Yao deflected it enough for Grant Stoneman to clear off the line.
Vegas kept the lead intact in the 57th minute, rushing off his line to deny Colton Swan one-on-one, and RIFC survived two goalmouth scrambles in the final five minutes before Berry’s equalizer. Laurent Kissiedou’s cross to the back post was headed goalward by Berry, blocked, and poked home by Berry on the rebound.
RIFC reasserted itself in extra time, outshooting Charleston 4-1 in the first 15 minutes. Shapiro-Thompson came closest in the third minute, firing from the top of the box before Zamudio punched it wide.
In the shootout, Kwizera, Yutaro Tsukada, Karifa Yao and Vegas converted for RIFC. Hugo Bacharach missed, and Zamudio saved from Agustín “Pity” Rodríguez in the sixth round. Vegas saved Graham Smith’s attempt for Charleston, but Berry, Sean Suber, Emilio Ycaza, Kissiedou and Jeremy Kelly scored.
Kwizera was named player of the game. His goal was his seventh of the season.
RIFC finished the regular season with 12 wins, tying a club record, and clinched a third straight playoff berth — one of only four clubs in the league’s modern era to reach the postseason in each of its first three seasons. The quarterfinal exit is the club’s earliest, after reaching the USL Championship Final in 2024 and the Eastern Conference Final in 2025.
The club returns to Centreville Bank Stadium in Pawtucket for its fourth season in 2027.
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