Club enjoys brief spell atop league table, is on pace to host playoff match
With only three matches – all to be played at Covenant Health Park – remaining in its 2025 USL League One campaign, One Knoxville SC is on the verge of securing a home playoff berth for the weekend of Nov. 1. The results of Matchday 28, which occurred the last weekend of September, coalesced in the team clinching a postseason spot, and now it is enmeshed in the middle of a three-way race with Chattanooga Red Wolves SC and Spokane Velocity to determine a regular-season champion. This article will recap the club’s last four fixtures before previewing October’s stretch run.
Union Omaha, the defending champion, already is a formidable opponent in normal circumstances, but the club had been on a tear since losing away to the Scruffy Boys in mid-August, going unbeaten in its succeeding five matches and seemingly scoring goals for fun. Welcoming Knoxville to Werner Park (one of the mixed-use grounds that was a primary architectural inspiration for CHP) on Sept. 21, it was hoping to exact some measure of revenge on the visiting squad, which had experienced mixed results in its last few games.
It didn’t take long for Omaha to jump out to a quick lead. A diagonal crossfield ball from the left corner of the Union’s own penalty area to the right flank was centered to a trailing Prosper Kasim, who curled a left-footed shot from the arc that was palmed upward by Sean Lewis into the path of a crashing Sergio Ors-Navarro. The Spanish attacker, who had just picked up a very late brace in his team’s nationally televised midweek match versus Spokane, rebounded a header over the prone goalkeeper and into the open net. Barely five minutes had elapsed, and it was 1-nil.
A pair of uncharacteristic errors by Lewis and Sivert Haugli combined for a calamitous giveaway that straightaway led to a second tally by Ors-Navarro. From what should have been a harmless goal kick, the netminder played an excruciatingly slow pass to the center back, who, seeming not to notice the rapidity with which the forward was stealing into the area, waited for the ball to roll to him rather than actively trying to meet it. Ors-Navarro intercepted it, took a touch and lifted the ball over Lewis’ shoulder to notch his double. Having run roughshod over Knoxville in the first quarter of an hour, it seemed like the Omaha onslaught was just getting underway – particularly when Lewis was forced into making lunging saves on consecutive shots in the 16th minute.
However, One Knox responded with dogged determination, strengthening its resolve and turning the next extended passage into a slog. The beautiful game failed to exist for much of the rest of the half, as pauses for rough fouls and balls out of bounds became the norm. The card-happy referee issued three cautions in the first half hour and could’ve doled out a second to Omaha’s Max Schneider in the 34th minute for felling Angelo Kelly on a second attempt at a chop from behind inside his own area.
The official at least awarded a penalty, and Babacar Diene stepped up to take the spot kick. Sending Rashid Nuhu the wrong way, the Knoxville striker halved the deficit by coolly slotting to the left of the keeper, who sprang to his right. Two more yellows were distributed before the break, which came after six minutes of extra time accrued due to myriad stoppages.
Limited to 45 minutes in just his third appearance since returning from injury, Mark Doyle was replaced by Stavros Zarokostas to begin the second half. Right back Jaheim Brown was finding his legs, as well, and he made way for Dani Fernandez. Although One Knox continued to lose the possession battle, the subs made a notable impact in moderating the action. The introduction of Abel Caputo and Gio Calixtro, on in the 68th minute for Callum Johnson and Nico Rosamilia, respectively, provided stability, but it was Kempes Tekiela, on for Mikkel Gøling in the 51st, who was crucial in linking the front lines, taking on defenders and opening space for teammates.
Following a misplayed through ball that killed an Omaha two-on-one break, Knoxville countered quickly in the 71st minute. An insightful forward pass found Tekiela, who dribbled intently toward the backline, attracting multiple defenders before distributing to Diene at the top of the key and continuing his run to further free up room. Taking a single deft touch to set up a shot, Diene drove a low wormburner across goal that beat Nuhu to his right and spun satisfyingly up into the roof of the net due to the substantial torque he placed on the ball. Down two early in the match, the away side was suddenly level, and the heat was on.
Well, sort of. Although both teams can be credited for pushing ranks forward in the pursuit of a go-ahead goal, each of those forays evidenced an economical albeit understandable amount of trepidation. The Union came closest to finding a late winner but couldn’t produce a proper final touch, and the match ended in a 2-2 draw. The stats weighed largely in favor of the hosts, but the outcome was probably a fair one given recent results, the torrid streak Omaha had been on and the resilience displayed in the comeback. The tie lifted One Knox to third in the table with 42 points, sandwiched between Spokane with 43 and FC Naples with 41.
Five days later, Knoxville was back at CHP to face off against Charlotte Independence for the third and final time in the regular season (although the squads might be on a collision course to meet again in the playoffs). Having lost the first encounter and drawn the second, the home side was looking to even the season series in this rubber match. Babacar Diene nearly opened the scoring in the 8th minute, but his powerful effort was deflected over the endline by Amal Knight as he bore in alone on the goalkeeper. In real time from my vantage point in the stadium, it looked like Diene had timed his run to perfection, but later replays suggested the linesman had made the correct call.
The early pressure culminated in another clear-cut chance in the 11th minute. Abel Caputo lifted a long ball to Mark Doyle, who rose above his marker and nodded it to Kempes Tekiela. Noticing that Knight was off his line, he dinked a looping volley over the stranded keeper that gently kissed the far post and bounced away. Three minutes later, Tekiela was at the heart of another attack. Dribbling to the top of the key, he found an open Stuart Ritchie, who dropped a spot-on cross onto the forehead of a leaping Gio Calixtro, who thumped it hard but over the crossbar. Caputo lofted another accurate ball to Jaheim Brown in the 23rd minute; the right back had made a smart run down the channel and controlled his first touch past the onrushing netminder but wide of goal.
As it had since kickoff, Charlotte continued to maintain a low block, allowing One Knox ample time on the ball. While the Independence offered little resistance in midfield, but it also allowed a staggering amount of room in wide areas. Ritchie galloped into acres of space along the left touchline in the 29th minute and bent a cross between two defenders and onto the head of Diene, who couldn’t shrug their presence off enough to fashion an effort on target. Two minutes later, Calixtro found Ritchie again, this time on the overlap. The left back whipped in another pinpoint delivery to the near post that Tekiela angled just beyond the back stick with a wide-open header.
The incessant pressure resulted in a goalmouth scramble in the box just a couple of minutes later which culminated with Calixtro firing low but being denied by a sprawling Knight. Soon after, the goalie did well to pluck the ball off of Brown as he zoomed past his defender and attempted to latch onto a through ball. On 36 minutes, Doyle stormed past the center stripe, dispossessed the left back of the ball immediately after he had received it from a throw-in, dribbled once and looked for Diene down the seam. Had the pass not been so heavy, the striker would have had a clean path in on goal. In the 38th minute, a movement down the right flank yielded yet another golden opportunity.
Tidy buildup play in the offensive third opened a passing lane for Jordan Skelton, and the captain flighted a ball over the top for Tekiela. The German lifted it with the outside of his left foot to Diene, who pushed it on to Calixtro. Spinning around, the winger released a solid shot, but Knight got enough of a boot on it to send it crashing off the woodwork and out for a clearance. The final portion of the first 45 saw Knoxville crowding Charlotte’s penalty area and pumping in cross after cross, but the home side couldn’t break the deadlock before the whistle sounded. It was as dominant of a first-half performance I can recall the team putting together, but the game to that point somehow remained scoreless.
One Knox picked up right where it had left off on the other side of halftime. Within a minute of the restart, Calixtro worked neat triangles on the left side of the pitch with Ritchie and Angelo Kelly before cutting the ball back to the edge of the area and bending an effort toward the back stick that narrowly missed the top corner. It had been under the cosh since the beginning of the game, but disaster struck for Charlotte in the 50th minute when Bachir Ndiaye, already on a yellow, led with an elbow while challenging Kelly for a header and was sent off. Though it always seemed like it was a matter of when, not if, Knoxville would score, the expectation was tangible following the dismissal.
How it would make the breakthrough, however, came as a bit of a shock. Accepting a short pass from Caputo in the 66th minute, Brown opened himself up for a shot from a little over 20 yards out and uncorked a screamer that beelined toward the far-post top bin. Knight was able to get a hand on it, but the sheer force of the drive was too much for him to do much else, and it crashed violently off the stick and into the net. As he pivoted to celebrate the wondergoal, Brown winced, clutched his right oblique and crumpled to the grass. He was promptly subbed out, but his final contribution of the evening was massive.
Despite being down a man for most of it, the Independence made a much better account of itself in the second half than it did in the first. The team defended well, withstood the unrelenting pressure it faced and even offered an offensive threat on occasion. There had been a couple of hairy moments before Ritchie slid and cleared a problematic ball to the far post with about 20 minutes to go, and a 79th-minute blast from the left corner of the area was almost a mirror image of Brown’s strike, but it flew wide of the frame, much to the relief of Sean Lewis and company.
From the ensuing goal kick, second-half substitute Stavros Zarokostas was unlucky not to have put the match to bed. Released by a switch from fellow sub Nico Rosamilia, the winger eluded the last defender but pulled his shot wide of Knight and an otherwise gaping goalmouth. Charlotte finally displayed a bit of urgency as time began to wane, which made for a slightly nervy conclusion. But even after an exorbitant six (that extended to nearly seven) minutes of injury time, One Knox was able to emerge unscathed and collect all three points to climb into second place above Spokane. And with AV Alta FC’s loss the next day, the club officially secured a playoff spot.
The Oct. 1 midweek clash with Chattanooga had been shaping up to be pivotal for a while, but the recent dip in form by the Red Wolves and Knoxville’s consistent march up the league table presented the home side with an opportunity to overtake its in-state rivals with a victory. Pregame promotional materials hyping the match acknowledged its importance, and the players seemed to embrace the task at hand from the get-go, jumping out to a quick lead in a manner befitting the teams’ contrasting fortunes and never looking back.
Stuart Ritchie has been the instigator of numerous scoring moves for One Knox this year, and he spearheaded another critical one in just the 2nd minute. Settling a header from Angelo Kelly and beating his defender down the left touchline, he played an outswinging ball over the outstretched glove of Jason Smith and onto the dome of Mark Doyle, who directed it home for an early tally. To be honest, I was still exchanging pleasantries with a couple of familiar faces and hadn’t yet taken a seat when the net bulged, but I was able to catch the replay on the scoreboard overlooking the healthy contingent of cheering fans gathered at the Modelo Watering Hole.
Manager Ian Fuller’s lineup was unchanged from the one that took care of business against Charlotte, but a new wrinkle I don’t remember from the last game (or any other before it, for that matter) was Doyle starting on the right wing, presumably in order to facilitate cutting inside and shooting with his effective left peg. While that conditional never came to fruition, Knoxville was able to manifest a few half-chances throughout the first period – although none of them carried the same promise or excitement sparked by the early score. Still, the squad was comfortable in possession, easily absorbing the mild pressure generated by Chattanooga’s mid-block.
For a game with such huge ramifications, the Red Wolves rarely constituted a cohesive threat. Whether it was the passive formation featuring five across the back or just general malaise, the away side produced only a few half-chances of its own. The first was a deflected 8th-minute cross that Sean Lewis was able to palm onto his bar and away to safety. The next emanated from a 32nd-minute counter in which forward Matthew Acosta streaked through the middle of the field in an attempt to get on the end of Pedro Hernandez’s hopeful ball. Sensing that the pass was coming, Kelly hustled back and barely nicked the ball away from the attacker at the last instant. The other was a sharp effort by Matthew Bentley from a low cross dragged back from the endline in the 42nd. Though quite the close call, it flew wide of the frame.
When in possession, Chattanooga strived to be expansive, playing long passes to spread the field. But Knoxville was well organized and worked hard defensively to minimize any weaknesses. Kempes Tekiela best represented the exhaustive work ethic of One Knox as a whole. From leading the press out of possession; dropping back from the forward line to show as a potential outlet when in possession; and intelligently distributing passes when he did receive the ball, it seemed like he was everywhere in the first half. I jotted a lengthy screed about the need to mention his intrinsic value on the night after he tracked back for a long throw-in in the 45th minute, put his body on the line going up for a header and drew a yellow-card foul on his opponent in doing so.
And I looked up from my ledger just in time to see Babacar Diene pick up a loose ball in midfield, niftily sidle past a defender, spot Tekiela’s cleverly angled run and clip a precise pass to him through the backline. The No. 10 made no mistake with what was a brilliantly composed finish. Opening his hips, he caused Smith to lean to his left before sliding a low shot to the keeper’s right with his left instep. Arriving halfway through the allotted four minutes of stoppage time, the timing of the insurance goal was devastating for the away side, whose starting 11 looked equal parts frustrated, furious and disconsolate. The teams went into the halftime break with Knoxville holding a commanding 2-0 lead.
Although Chattanooga immensely improved in the second half – it held court almost exclusively in the Knoxville zone, almost equaled the possession stats, more than doubled One Knox’s shot count and seriously threatened on one occasion (Lewis came out to stifle a close-range shot in the 73rd minute, and Ritchie miraculously blocked the follow-up) – the deficit always appeared insurmountable. Many of those efforts sailed high or wide, eliciting sarcastic cheers from the home supporters – a rather rambunctious lot for a Wednesday night that clearly was enjoying the prospect of a win and what it would entail – when they did.
When the final whistle blew after six minutes of added time, the crowd roared its approval and roundly applauded the players, who reciprocated in kind in front of the Scruffs in the north end of CHP. Although the Red Wolves and One Knox shared identical records and were even on 48 points, the home team held a superior goal difference and thus occupied the top spot in the League One standings. Unfortunately, with the next fixture falling just three days later (Saturday, Oct. 4, on the road in Richmond, Virginia), there wasn’t much time to bask in the success of going atop the table.
The good news was that, with just a few exceptions, Knoxville had equaled or bettered its results in subsequent meetings with teams it had played earlier in the campaign. The bad news was that Richmond was one of the clubs that had bucked that trend, completely flipping the script in the second of two back-to-back games in August. As such, there were no guarantees entering this match, despite One Knox flying high in first place and the Kickers not technically eliminated from playoff contention but needing a win simply to survive for the time being. It is said that desperation sometimes breeds ingenuity, and the struggling squad pulled out all the stops in order to claw out the only viable outcome that would keep its season alive.
It was the away side that came closest to drawing first blood, though. Stavros Zarokostas, starting in a moderately rotated 11 for the first time since the Sept. 13 away tussle with Antelope Valley in Lancaster, California, seized upon a short pass from Sivert Haugli after a cleared corner in the 22nd minute and launched a left-footed rocket from long distance that initially looked destined for the top corner but trailed away the longer it stayed aloft.
However, on the following possession, a foul on the left side of midfield cued a long ball to the opposite flank, where right back Simon Fitch brought it down, shepherded it toward the endline and delivered a dangerous cross that evaded Sean Lewis but was headed away from the goal box. It was cleared only as far as the middle of the penalty area, though, where Adrian Billhardt had taken up residence 12 yards out. The forward smacked an uncontested, unstoppable volley past a helpless Lewis and into the far bottom corner of his net.
Eleven minutes later, in the 34th, One Knox leveled the contest when Angelo Kelly stripped a Kicker of the ball at the top of the Richmond key, turned and passed into the arc to Babacar Diene in the apparent hope of a give-and-go. However, the striker assessed his options, saw Jaheim Brown flashing into the right side of the penalty area and slid a through ball to him. The right back side-footed a low, first-time shot that carried far too much pace for goalkeeper James Sneddon, knotting the score at 1-all. (For what it’s worth, Brown has tallied only three goals this season, but all of them have been absolute crackers.)
Knoxville was unable to build on that momentum, though, and Richmond soon was pressing high to win a series of free kicks and corners. The go-ahead goal, in the 40th minute, actually came from a nice bit of sustained possession in which Fitch displayed exemplary vision to spot the run of left back Max Schenfeld. With Brown drifting centrally to provide help, the back post was left unguarded, and Fitch looped an early cross to the exposed space that Schenfeld caught with a wicked volley off the bounce that he drove back off the turf to surprise Lewis, who appeared to be anticipating a different trajectory. The defender might have shinned the shot, but he will not have cared one iota given the end product and its significance.
Heading into halftime, One Knox held an authoritative edge in possession and led in shots but was behind where it truly mattered. The flow so far had been eerily similar to the last meeting between the clubs in that the away side had dictated large portions of play but had been punished for momentary lapses in concentration. Choosing continuity over drastic change, the lone substitution made by Ian Fuller at the break was inserting Gio Calixtro for Zarokostas.
As play resumed in the second half, it presently became clear that Richmond was content to park the bus and look to hit on the counter. That scenario played out repeatedly throughout the period, with the traveling team gradually tightening the screw as the minutes ticked by but to no avail. Kempes Tekiela replacing Mikkel Gøling at the hour mark was an overtly proactive move, as was Lucas Meek – in his long-awaited return from injury – coming on for Callum Johnson 15 minutes later, but nothing of any real note occurred other than the fiery Knoxville gaffer getting himself booked midway through the half.
Despite its supremacy in all facets of the game, One Knox ultimately was unable to unlock the stingy Richmond defense. The away side’s attacking moves were largely devoid of creativity and incisiveness; Diene won a late header in the box that seemed to brush the shoulder of a Kicker, provoking a few half-hearted claims for a penalty, but that was about it for enthusiasm until what turned out to be the very last kick of the match. A last-gasp long ball was sent into the box and bounced around before falling to Calixtro, who got a good look at goal but volleyed wide as Sneddon scrambled to cover his near post. The full-time whistle sounded for a 2-1 final score.
In concurrent action, Chattanooga could manage only a scoreless draw at home versus Greenville Triumph SC, but that was enough to reassert its league lead by a single point. Spokane had emerged victorious on the road in Charlotte the night before to creep within two points of second-place Knoxville with a game in hand. Not to dwell on the loss, but it meant that One Knox was able to extract just five points from five matches against the bottom two clubs in the division.
Looking ahead to what remains of the 2025 regular season, One Knox returns home to CHP – where it has not lost in the league – for its last three fixtures. The first of those will take place this Friday, Oct. 10, at 6:30 p.m. versus sixth-place Portland Hearts of Pine, a hungry expansion franchise and the only other team besides the Velocity to have a game in hand. The Maine club will be looking to improve its postseason stock while a Knoxville win would go a long way toward ensuring that all roads to the final wind through the Scruffy City.
The last two games on One Knox’s schedule (3 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 19, vs. Texoma FC and 7 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 25, vs. Greenville) are relatively favorable, at least compared to some of the confrontations teams around it in the standings are facing: On Oct. 11, the Red Wolves have to travel to the Wisconsin capital to play the tricky Forward Madison, and Spokane hosts a resurgent South Georgia Tormenta FC; Charlotte and Chattanooga clash on Oct. 17; Naples and Spokane meet the following evening; and Portland and Spokane make up their games in hand against each other Oct. 21. The final matchday promises to be a doozy, as well: Portland vs. AV Alta, Naples vs. Charlotte and Omaha vs. Spokane highlight that Saturday’s action.
Depending on how the next round of matches unfolds, both Texoma and Greenville could have very little or quite a lot to play for. Either way, neither club should be taken lightly given what is at stake for a Knoxville team on the cusp of hosting a playoff game and/or winning a regular-season championship. If you haven’t made it to the Old City to experience a One Knox gameday yet, I would highly recommend you do so now. Rather than winding down, the action is just now ramping up, and the squad could use your support as it seeks to make East Tennessee sports history.
