USL League One club registers 2 wins, draw, loss in last 4 matches
Coming off a disappointing loss in the second of back-to-back games on the road in Richmond, Virginia, One Knoxville SC still was in good shape in the USL League One standings, but the last week of August through the first week of September promised to be a pivotal stretch in the chase for a home playoff berth. Entering its midweek match with FC Naples on Aug. 27, third-place One Knox held a one-point lead over the visiting club, which was fourth in the table. The thin margin remained the same after an eventful yet scoreless 90 minutes that saw the home side outperforming the competition by a good measure but ultimately unable to find a finishing touch.
Knoxville started on the front foot, securing possession and camping out on the edge of the Florida team’s penalty area within just a few seconds and generally holding court there for much of the opening 20 minutes. The first good chance occurred in the 12th minute when Naples temporarily relieved the pressure, allowing Knoxville to regroup and initiate a move down the left side of the pitch. Angelo Kelly slipped a through ball to Stuart Ritchie, who stepped over a sliding challenge, took off down the touchline and bent a ball toward the inward-angling run of Babacar Diene. Opening his body to receive the cross, the striker made solid contact with his left boot but lifted his shot well over the crossbar.
Mikkel Gøling’s hard foul presented Naples with a set-piece opportunity on 23. Karsen Henderlong wrapped a 30-yard effort around the wall, and it bounced at an awkward height for goalkeeper Sean Lewis, who was relieved to see the ball rebound off his near post and away to safety. Five minutes later, the forward got on the end of an attack he started with a tight turn in midfield. Spinning around Abel Caputo, he motored forward before distributing the ball to the left and continuing his run. Anticipating an early cross, he sliced across Sivert Haugli, who was stuck in no man’s land, to meet the first-time ball and barely missed the upper 90 at the far post with a looping header.
One Knox reasserted control for the rest of the half, frequently finding acres of space on the right but unable to break down an organized Naples backline. Receiving a return pass from Kimarni Smith on an overlapping run, Jaheim Brown fired a shot/cross across the face of the goal in the 36th minute, but no one could crash the box quickly enough to get a touch on it. Otherwise, apart from a few nice exchanges of passes down the left flank and a turnaround attempt by Diene that skittered well wide in the 43rd, nothing of any real significance happened before the referee blew his whistle to signal the end of the half.
Attacking the end of Covenant Health Park housing the lively section of Scruffs in the second frame, Knoxville picked up where it had left off before the break. Kelly found himself in space in the midfield and linked well with Smith and Brown on the right. Caputo stepped up to the edge of the area and unleashed a screamer three minutes into the half that froze Naples netminder Edward Delgado but flew just over the bar. Soon after, another delicious Ritchie cross tempted both Kelly and Gøling, but the former’s failed attempt at a bicycle kick canceled out the latter as he rose for a header. The ball fell to Brown, who couldn’t get far enough over it due to a high bounce and consequently sailed his volley over the bar.
Smith collected a pass from Kelly in the 57th minute and teased Julian Cisneros before he pushed it past the defender and tried to beat him with pace. The left back made a desperate lunge into the winger and incurred a yellow card, but he was lucky that the infraction occurred mere inches outside of the penalty area. The resulting free kick was low and easily cleared, but One Knox retained possession. Having shielded the ball and worked himself free from the left corner, Nico Rosamilia evaded a couple defenders on the wing and whipped in a tricky flat inswinger that Delgado did well to track and clutch off a short hop. It was the closest thing to a shot on goal for the home side on the night.
As the match wore on, Knoxville maintained its high press and had a few final entry passes cut out at the last moment. Ritchie was called for a high boot after about an hour, but it didn’t appear that he made actual contact with the Naples player, and Lewis strongly punched away the free kick that followed. No sooner than stepping onto the pitch to replace Rosamilia in the 65th minute, Stavros Zarokostas was offered an open run in on goal via a quality long through ball from Caputo, but he allowed a defender to catch up with him, and the chance was gone.
Kempes Tekiela was introduced on 76 minutes, and he put his solid holdup play and fancy footwork to immediate use. Pulling a pair of defenders with him to the right touchline, he opened up space behind him for Kelly, who received the ball and played it back out wide to James Thomas, who had been subbed in for Brown 20 minutes earlier. Knoxville’s first-ever signing shaped a dangerous cross into the box that took a deflection, just missed being stabbed goalward by the toe of Diene and bounded just beyond the reach of Gio Calixtro, another second-half substitute.
A Naples corner with 10 minutes to go was flicked from the front post to the back stick and almost put away by Henderlong. In the goalmouth scramble that followed, Tekiela was judged to have been fouled at the same time Kevin O’Connor dragged a low shot past Lewis and into the back of the net, nullifying the go-ahead goal and dashing the side’s hopes of earning a full three points away from home. Obviously feeling aggrieved based on his remonstrations to the officials, the midfielder resolutely stepped up to the right corner of the penalty area three minutes later to take a free kick.
Going for goal when everyone expected a service to teammates, O’Connor curled a tremendous effort to the far post that struck the underside of the bar and bounced down and away. Lewis, who was a little off his line in the event of a cross and had to cheat a bit to his left in case the taker had tried to go up and over the wall, was clearly beaten and could only flap at the shot. A couple of inches lower, and it would have been a contender for goal of the week.
Those opportunities came against the run of play, however, with One Knox – mirroring the game at large – spending the majority of the second 45 in its opponent’s half. From a throw-in on the right touchline in the 85th minute, Thomas placed the ball at the feet of Tekiela, got it back and flighted a cross into the area that Diene outjumped his man to reach but nodded over the bar. Tekiela led a charge with numbers soon after that was stymied by a cynical challenge that resulted in a caution. But that was the last push for either team, as the match ended nil-nil after four minutes of stoppage time.
An even stiffer test awaited the Scruffy Boys the following Saturday, Aug. 30. Spokane Velocity arrived at CHP in second place with a three-point lead over the home side; a win would extend it to six, but a loss would see Knoxville pull even in the table. A draw, like the dramatic 2-2 finish that played out in the first league game of the season March 16 in Eastern Washington, would mean that the gap remained the same.
One Knox got off to an auspicious start with Kempes Tekiela, named to the starting 11 for the first time since recovering from injury, firing an early warning shot over the crossbar a little over a minute into the match. Soon after, Stavros Zarokostas was set up with a clear opportunity in the middle of the penalty area, but he fluffed his lines with his weaker left foot on a shot that squibbed harmlessly over the end line.
With Spokane employing an industrious 3-5-2 formation, its wingbacks found gobs of room in wide channels in the first half and pushed inside Knoxville’s box on multiple occasions. None of those movements were fruitful for the Velocity, however, and the home team launched several threatening counterattacks when it regained control of the ball. In the 15th minute, Tekiela shuffled by a defender with a croqueta and fed Zarokostas on the right. The winger hit a sharp first-time drive toward Carlos Merancio’s near post that stung the netminder’s palms as he dove to push it away.
While speedy counters were One Knox’s most effective means of attack, the breakthrough arose from patient buildup play from the back. Careful and deliberate in possession, Knoxville’s backline shifted the ball around, playing triangles as it looked for seams in Spokane’s defense. Eventually, Jordan Skelton passed long to Dani Fernandez, who had stolen forward and found an empty pocket along the right touchline. With ample time and space to size up a cross, he whipped in a perfectly measured ball to the back post where Gio Calixtro sent a convincing header back across goal to make it 1-0 in the 24th minute.
A sequence four minutes later saw an audacious backheel attempt by Babacar Diene deflect over the endline for a corner and, from a loose ball on the resulting kick, Sivert Haugli thump a spinning volley off the hands of Merancio. The big Norwegian almost scored an own goal at the half-hour mark with a defensive header that skipped across the goal box but fortunately stayed out. A smart layoff from Calixtro in the 40th minute paved the way for an uncontested shot on goal by Callum Johnson, but the Englishman’s strong effort was caught by the keeper.
A sprightly presence throughout the first 45 minutes, Zarokostas had a couple more bites at the apple in the waning moments of the half. In a similar move to the one that brought about his earlier chance, Tekiela led a break through midfield before dishing wide right. The Greek No. 7 took one touch before cutting inside and testing Merancio with a low shot at his near post. The goalie was ideally situated and got down quickly enough to smother the sneaky attempt.
Intercepting a pass during the following Velocity possession, Fernandez broke forward himself, dancing past the challenge of one defender and drawing a couple more to the center of the park the farther he dribbled. Had he played Zarokostas in sooner, it would have been a one-on-one against the keeper. The fullback kept the ball for a couple extra seconds, though, which allowed one of the collapsing defenders to recover and track the run of the winger. The pass, too, wasn’t as accurate as Fernandez would have hoped, and it forced Zarokostas into a sliding shot that deflected off the retreating defender and into the side netting. The ensuing corner amounted to nothing, and the teams decamped to their respective locker rooms with Knoxville leading by a lone goal despite doubling up its opponent in shots (8-4, including a 5-0 advantage in shots on frame).
On the other side of halftime, Abel Caputo almost made it 2-0 out of the blue. Pouncing on a loose ball in the 53rd minute and deftly touching it away from a defender, he drilled a 20-yard shot using very little backlift that slammed against the bar and rebounded well away. Two minutes later, Stuart Ritchie floated a ball into the area that sailed too high for Tekiela but fell to Zarokostas, who fizzed a right-footed volley just wide of the far post.
As the second half progressed, the Velocity began to dictate more and more of the action. By the 65th minute, Spokane was making repeated forays into the final third of the Knoxville end. Only disciplined defensive positioning and multiple shot blocks prevented the away side from leveling the contest.
An unfortunate aspect of the second period that carried over from the first half was a rash of stoppages in play which required medical personnel to enter the field to assess injuries. Thankfully, most were innocuous and the product of random collisions, but a few unfortunately resulted from a clash of heads. In one such instance in the 82nd minute, a One Knox counter was preemptively shut down just as an odd-man rush was developing. That the play was blown dead was no doubt frustrating for the home team, but the referee had no choice but to halt play.
Despite encroaching on Knoxville’s 18 for a large portion of the half, Spokane didn’t seriously threaten Sean Lewis’ goal until deep into extra time. On a corner in the 94th minute, Javier Gil lost his defender and rose for a free header on the edge of the goal box. Leaping with catlike reflexes, Lewis extended a paw to deny the defender’s walloped effort, and Skelton nodded the ball off the line and over the bar to preserve the clean sheet. Full time came without any further peril, and One Knox clinched all three points to enter a third-place tie with the visitors.
A much-anticipated showdown Sept. 6 versus South Georgia away in Statesboro was next up, with the matchup looming large primarily due to the individual now in interim charge of Tormenta FC: former One Knox gaffer Mark McKeever, the club’s original coach from its inception as a League Two side through much of the 2024 season. Even though the parties separated by mutual consent, the dynamic imbued Saturday’s proceedings with an undeniably irascible air.
Knoxville jumped out to an early lead in the 4th minute when Stuart Ritchie was cut down while marauding down the left flank. Callum Johnson’s low free kick from just outside of the penalty area to the near post was flicked into the net by Dani Fernandez, the first of two unmarked runners to arrive at the front stick. The visitors almost doubled their advantage in the 21st when Kempes Tekiela slotted a horizontal pass to Babacar Diene at the top of the key. With his back to goal, the striker laid the ball off to Abel Caputo for a first-time shot. The midfielder stepped through it, but the effort hit a defender and looped up over the crossbar, freezing goalkeeper Austin Pack on his line but landing in the netting just above the frame.
Unable to capitalize on the chance, One Knox found itself level again with the hosts five minutes later. Standout player Niall Reid-Stephen did well to hold off a pair of defenders before teeing up Oscar Jiménez for a cross. The wingback bent an inviting ball into the box, and Sebastián Vivas soared between Jordan Skelton and Fernandez to snap it past Sean Lewis with a powerful header. Ten minutes after the equalizer, Lewis came out to deny Reid-Stephen with a sliding stop as the forward bore in on goal.
It was two minutes later, in the 36th, that things began to unravel for Knoxville. The official already had handed out three cautions to that point, and he issued a fourth to Caputo for taking exception to Mason Tunbridge’s cheeky Cruyff turn and snatching at him from behind. The subsequent direct free kick was curled over the wall and on frame but was saved by a springing Lewis, who uncoiled to push the ball onto the near post before repelling a point-blank follow-up from a narrow angle.
In the 42nd minute, Caputo clipped the leg of Gabriel Alves as both were vying for a 50/50 ball in the South Georgia end. The contact was minimal, seemingly accidental and certainly not violent, but the Brazilian depicted an impeccable Neymar Jr. impression that would have made his countryman proud – or flush with embarrassment given its histrionic embellishment. Rolling over multiple times and pounding the turf in faux agony, the Tormenta defender nevertheless swayed the opinion of the ref, who sent Caputo off without hesitation.
The challenge wasn’t a wise one for a player on a yellow to make, but it also shouldn’t have occasioned his dismissal. Ian Fuller evidently felt the same, as the One Knox manager offered some choice words to the officiating crew and received a warning of his own. Although the teams headed into the break on even terms, they reemerged with differing ambitions. Hoping to hold on for a point, Fuller replaced the No. 10 Tekiela with midfield bulldog Angelo Kelly. The tactic paid off until the hour mark when, in another moment of consternation for the traveling squad, a dubious foul presented the home side with a free kick in a favorable position.
The ball into the box pinged around before landing in front of Reid-Stephen, who let loose a corker of a half-volley from 18 yards that deflected slightly en route to zooming past Lewis and into the Knoxville net to make it 2-1. If the temperature of the match had been simmering for a while, the go-ahead goal brought it up to a boil. Despite being down a man, the away side did its best to get back into it, carefully splitting the difference between responsible defending and pushing its depleted numbers forward.
More often than not, though, One Knox was stuck committing to the former out of necessity, and Reid-Stephen almost notched a third tally in the 71st minute. Dribbling into the right side of the penalty area, he smoothly performed a couple of stepovers before cutting the ball to his left and ripping a shot with the same dominant foot that had given his team the lead. A visibly beaten Lewis didn’t even bother reaching for it, but it smacked off the far post and bounced right back in the direction from where it had come. A few minutes later, Alvez went on a winding run and fashioned a swerving effort that initially confused the netminder, but he was able to get his hands behind it at the last instant.
An 80th-minute move down the left touchline presented Ritchie with a snapshot at drawing Knoxville even. Sprinting at top speed, he caught up with a long through ball and sent a low shot across the face of the Tormenta goal and just wide of the far post. On the opposite end, Reid-Stephen created yet another opportunity for himself that could’ve iced the match in the 84th. Outrunning Sivert Haugli to collect a hopeful ball from the back, he broke in alone on Lewis, who didn’t bite on the attacker’s fake shot and extended a leg to poke the ball away.
A deep free kick for Knoxville in the 86th minute illustrated the judicial disparity the away coaching staff felt had blemished the match as a whole. Gio Calixtro’s service into the area was excellent, the outswinger curling invitingly into the path of Skelton. As the imposing skipper jumped for a header, he was met with a bodycheck from Pack, who completely whiffed on his attempted clearance and instead clattered into the Geordie. It was a definite infringement and should have been a stonewall penalty, but it somehow went unnoticed by the head ref and his assistants.
Because of the thin and muted Statesboro crowd, the ESPN microphones placed in front of the team benches had picked up a majority of what had been said over the course of the game, and Fuller’s response to this particular inaction was especially heated. Most of the language he used isn’t fit to print in a family-friendly publication, but suffice it to say that he was upset with the quality of officiating. “I don’t want a friend,” he declared to the fourth referee, who was threatening him with expulsion. “Do your job!” Ultimately, the rant was deemed to be too harsh and to have carried on for too long, and Fuller received his marching orders as the match neared its inevitable conclusion.
Entering the contest, One Knox had won four in a row versus Tormenta and was undefeated in its previous five against the club, but it couldn’t surmount the encumbrance of playing a man down for a full half and some change. A nasty and unnecessary tackle by Reid-Stephen on Lewis just before the final whistle was representative of the bad blood that had flowed through the totality of a game in which 15 yellow and two red cards were disseminated. The loss temporarily dropped Knoxville to fourth in the table – still firmly entrenched in a playoff spot and in pole position for hosting a first-round tilt on the weekend of Nov. 1.
Knoxville had made up most of the games it had in hand during the busy months of July and August, so it had a full week to stew on the disappointing 2-1 defeat to South Georgia before traveling cross-country to Lancaster, California, to take on AV Alta FC on Sept. 13. Although the goaltender and defense remained unchanged for the 10:30 p.m. EST matchup, caretaker manager Ilija Ilić rotated the midfield and forward lines, retaining the regular shape of a 4-2-3-1 formation but engaging Callum Johnson in a more advanced role.
Some kind of musical accompaniment is common at all levels of soccer in the U.S., but aside from the odd college game, I’d never witnessed an entire marching band soundtrack a match until this one. Alta had partnered with local high school Quartz Hill, whose pep band and color guard provided pageantry throughout the 90 minutes and also performed on the pitch during halftime. Their presence imparted Lancaster Municipal Stadium with a lively, raucous environment that propelled the home side to an early lead courtesy of a technically impressive goal by Javier Mariona.
A corner kick in the 13th minute fell to Jerry Desdunes, whose blocked shot was flicked up, juggled and volleyed on a turnaround into the Knoxville net with aplomb by the young forward, who celebrated with the fans congregated near the corner flag while the stadium lights cycled off and on. As the crowd continued to roar its approval following the restart, the away side maintained neat possession while weathering a heavy press and equalized just three minutes after it had capitulated.
Tight, intuitive interplay in the midfield between Stuart Ritchie and Nico Rosamilia led to the left back accelerating down the left flank and delivering one of his patented driven crosses to the back post, where Mikkel Gøling was at the ready to stoop and head home for a decisive finish. It was just the latest incarnation of a move One Knox supporters have seen pay dividends multiple times already this season, but they surely will never tire of flawless execution that produces goals of such beautiful simplicity.
Some good defensive work by Sivert Haugli in the 23rd minute kept the score deadlocked at 1-all, but Alta enjoyed the wealth of possession for much of the half, with Knoxville venturing forward only for the rare counterattack. One in the 32nd minute began with a long ball from Sean Lewis that was chested down close to the center circle by Rosamilia, who played it onward to Gøling. The Dane strode forward, attracting the right-center back before feeding Ritchie in the left channel. The fullback sent it back to the penalty spot to Rosamilia, whose touch let him down just as he was preparing to shoot.
Momentum seemed to flip following that fleeting chance, and One Knox almost pulled ahead three minutes later. From a throw-in, Ritchie played the ball to Rosamilia, took off down the touchline and received a return pass. Looking up, he spotted Babacar Diene’s run into the box and slotted a through ball to the striker, who redirected it with his instep past goalkeeper Carlos Ávilez but off the frame of the goal. The follow-up shot by Stavros Zarokostas’ ricocheted wide for a corner. Diene couldn’t believe his misfortune, bending over at the waist and ruing the missed opportunity before the kick was taken.
Diene nearly atoned in the 39th minute when Knoxville launched a counter after a period of sustained Alta pressure. Zarokostas found him with a pass from midfield, and he skipped past the last defender and centered the ball to a trailing Rosamilia. Ávilez was alert to the danger, however, and came out early enough to stifle the shot. A wicked Zarokostas effort off the rebound took a deflection over the bar. Dani Fernandez couldn’t get on the end of a Johnson free kick in the 41st, but the ball bounced up on goal and was swatted away by the keeper, though the play was called back for offside.
Sebastian Cruz pinched the ball off of Fernandez in the 44th minute and found Jimmie Villalobos at the top of the key, but the midfielder’s shot was always rising as it flew high and wide of the goal. As the game shifted into first-half extra time, a giveaway by Johnson in a dangerous area put Ritchie in a difficult position, but the defender was bailed out when Cruz steamrolled him after taking a heavy touch. Believing the decision should have been reversed, the spiffily attired Alta coach Brian Kleiban tore off his suit jacket and tossed it in protest. One Knox had a hint of a chance right before time expired, but Diene couldn’t access the ball due to expert shielding by the final defender.
Mariona started the second half as brightly as he began the first, nicking into a small pocket of space at the top of the penalty area in the 54th minute and slicing a shot across the Knoxville goal. It initially looked like it was going to be on frame, but the Magnus Effect was too great, and it rotated just wide of the far post. In the 59th, Alta drew iron after the ball was worked around the box and then was sent into the area. It was hard to tell who got the last touch, but it skimmed off the front of the crossbar and away from danger.
He made a brief yet welcome cameo in the closing stages of the prior match, but Mark Doyle entered after an hour for a longer runout versus Antelope Valley. Within four minutes, he nearly made an impression upon the game straightaway. Diene shook a defender on the right side of the park and looped an inswinger over the backline. Doyle made a late run into the box and came very close to stabbing it into the net, but Ávilez got to it first. Going back the other way, a yellow-card foul by Angelo Kelly at the top of the penalty arc presented Alta with a golden opportunity, but Lewis robbed Desdunes with a diving save of the Haitian’s curling, goal-bound strike.
Play became stretched as the match hit the 70-minute mark, with both teams introducing several substitutions in the last 20 minutes in order to shore things up defensively but also to push for a win. Kempes Tekiela was one of those changes, and he led a pair of counters leading up to stoppage time. The first petered out when he was beaten for pace in the box by a recovering defender; the second saw him earn a free kick in a promising area but sky the ensuing shot well over the bar.
In the 89th minute, Kelly went up for a contested header on the Knoxville side of the pitch and seemed to be struck in the face by Ronald Cerritos’ elbow. As he was lying prone on the field, Johnson – irate that the foul went uncalled – hacked down Osvaldo Lay and immediately got in the face of the official. He was promptly cautioned, as were two more of the several One Knox players who joined the fray. When the flared tempers finally subsided, Lewis easily foiled Eduardo Blancas’ tame shot on goal as the match entered three minutes of stoppage time.
In the second of those, Ritchie was given far too much time to settle a tall pass from Johnson along the left touchline. Pushing the ball past his man, he lifted a high cross that Gio Calixtro rose to meet from 6 yards out. Making good contact and directing it to the far post, the sub drew a fine outstretched stop from Ávilez, but the keeper could do nothing to prevent Tekiela from cutting into the box and smashing home a volley from close range. On a day when one Tennessee football team fought valiantly but faltered in crunch time, another stepped up to claim victory with late-game heroics and earn a massive three points in its continuing endeavor for a home playoff berth.
Once ranked amongst the league leaders, AV Alta has experienced a precipitous drop in form in recent months; this 2-1 loss extended its winless streak to 10 matches and left the club barely clinging onto a playoff spot as the regular season enters its final stretch. Meanwhile, One Knox has tapped into a mostly rich vein of form and is tied with FC Naples for third place in the League One standings. Although the Florida team has played one more game than the Scruffy Boys, it trails in head-to-head points, the next factor in determining seeding should they be level on overall points at the end of October.
It would behoove Knoxville to not look too far into the future, however, as four of its seven remaining matches will come against clubs currently occupying playoff spots. The good news is that five of them (including the last three) will be played at Covenant Health Park. Next up on the schedule is a road test versus Union Omaha on Sunday, Sept. 21 (5 p.m., ESPN+). One Knox escaped the reverse fixture with a 1-0 win and will hope to replicate or better that result in the Nebraska metropolis. The next home game is at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 26, against Charlotte Independence. Omaha and Charlotte are No. 8 and No. 5, respectively, in the table as of press time.
