With a fresh jersey and clear identity, Carolina Ascent FC gears up for first season
Local soccer fans packed HopFly Brewing Co. Charlotte on Wednesday as the city’s newest professional soccer team, Carolina Ascent FC, unveiled its first jerseys.
The set of colorful home and away kits inspired by the Carolinas’ lakes, beaches, mountains and sunsets marked another huge step forward for the Ascent as they prepare for their inaugural season.
With a logo and jersey officially revealed and 26 players signed thus far, Carolina Ascent FC is prepared to become Charlotte’s only professional women’s sports team and is aiming to find immediate success when it takes the field for the first time on Aug. 17 against DC Power FC at American Legion Memorial Stadium.
“I’m happy for our team, I know how hard they’ve worked to get the jerseys right, to get our brand right, to just get this event right,” Chief Operating Officer Tim Schuldt said. “It’s amazing to have so many soccer fans come and support us. I’m just so excited about what we have left to do and to get ready for the home opener.”
Carolina Ascent FC will play its inaugural season in the USL Super League, a new Division I league that’s set to compete against the more established National Women’s Soccer League, which has a Raleigh-based franchise in NC Courage.
“There’s a massive void of inspirational sports assets for young girls to aspire to,” Schuldt said. “This fills a massive void in Charlotte, in many other cities, and that’s what we really hope to be, is a catalyst for young girls to aspire to stay home.”
In January, the Ascent hired head coach Phillip Poole, who has lived in Charlotte for 24 years after moving from Newcastle, England, to the U.S. to play college soccer at Wingate. He’s spent time in a variety of roles across local youth clubs, colleges and professional teams. He was also an assistant coach for the U.S. women’s national team between 2020 and 2024 before joining Carolina Ascent FC.
Poole and his staff’s connections in the Carolinas and across the country have helped the club put together a roster with different levels of experience, including multiple young players he believes can make an impact. He added that the club doesn’t just want to sign young or local players for the sake of it, but aims to create an opportunity for them to advance their careers while helping the team win games.
“It’s not just about you know, the feel good, nice fluffy story — there has to be a legitimate pathway for these players,” Poole said. “There has to be a level of ability that says, with time and with a deliberate plan, we can get these players into our first team and we can get them prominent.”
To identify those players, the Ascent cast a wide net; only eight of their 26 players are from the Carolinas. While some others have local ties via their college or professional soccer careers, a majority of the team will be new to the region.
Some of those key acquisitions are Puerto Rican international Jill Aguilera, who made 36 appearances for the NWSL’s Chicago Red Stars over the past two seasons, and Sarah Troccoli, who has played her entire professional career overseas. Others include young talents in Molly Vapenski, Charlotte Burge and Stella Spitzer, natives of Illinois, Virginia and Ohio, respectively.
Some other important additions will be more familiar with the Carolinas, including Vicky Bruce, who is returning to her native North Carolina after seven years overseas with UEFA Women’s Champions League. The Ascent have also signed young Charlotte-born talents B Hylton and Jaida McGrew.
“I’m just excited to see what it means, the look on their family’s faces during that first national anthem,” Poole said. “I expect there’s a little extra hunger in those Carolina-based players to want to come do well and help win championships and put us on the map.”
Many Ascent players were in attendance for Wednesday’s unveiling in front of a packed crowd and signed the new jerseys for a variety of fans, many of which played a role in the design of the club’s logo and jerseys via surveys and focus groups.
“We feel like we have the most beautiful jerseys in soccer,” Schuldt said. “The fans told us we love the sunsets, we love the waterways and lakes and we recreate on, we love the mountains and we love the beaches. And that’s what we identify with the Carolinas. … So you’ll see the sunset, the beaches, the mountains in our logo and of course now in the jerseys.”
Schuldt said the club’s front office is focusing on a creating a positive gameday experience for fans in the lead-up to the Ascent’s season opener while Poole and his team undergo a preseason that he hopes will put the club in position to not just provide any ordinary opportunity for top-level women’s soccer players, but a successful one.
“I’m in love with Charlotte in terms of what it offers from a social standpoint, business, economic standpoint, from a sports standpoint … The missing piece is women’s professional sports,” Poole said. “The fact that we have a really affordable option 14 times a year here in Charlotte, that is at a beautiful soccer-specific stadium, you’re not fighting downtown traffic — I mean, what an opportunity.”
