Record home crowd witnesses 2-0 victory over Spokane Velocity
One Knoxville SC began its 2025 USL League One campaign away from home while finishing touches were being added to Covenant Health Park, the club’s newly constructed stadium east of the Old City. Although a then-record 6,378 fans attended an April 26 Jägermeister Cup match at the venue, the first five league fixtures were played on the road. The season opener, a 2-2 draw contested nearly 2,300 miles away from the Scruffy City on March 16, came against the Spokane Velocity. It was fitting, then, that the Washington team was the traveling side for Knoxville’s last game of the year: the 2025 USL League One Final, held at 5 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 16.
Having raised the Players’ Shield on Oct. 25 as the champion of the regular season, One Knox entered the postseason as the top seed, which ensured it would host throughout the playoffs as long as it continued to win. It defeated the Charlotte Independence 2-1 in the quarterfinal on Nov. 2 before dispatching FC Naples 1-0 on Nov. 8 in the semi. No. 3 Spokane, meanwhile, eked by South Georgia Tormenta FC and Portland Hearts of Pine in its respective matchups, with both decided on penalty kicks following 30 minutes of extra time.
On Oct. 21, Portland’s Fitzpatrick Stadium welcomed 6,440 spectators to break the attendance record set in Knoxville in the spring. Spokane was the opponent on that Tuesday night, and, buoyed by their supporters, the Hearts of Pine thrashed the visiting team 6-1 to dash its faint hope of vying for the Players’ Shield. In Sunday’s final, the Velocity faced another record-shattering crowd, as 7,500 fans descended upon the Cove to witness One Knox compete for the double.
To say that the environment for the hard sellout, which included a full allocation of 1,000 standing-room tickets, was electric would be an understatement. Surrounding establishments were packed with pregaming patrons hours before kickoff, with the Scruffs’ procession to the stadium featuring by far the largest contingent of the supporters’ group to date and the throng increasing in size as it amassed cheering fans along its march. Even more thrilling, though, was the atmosphere inside the park.
Flooded with folks abuzz with anticipation, the concourse was a hub of activity in the minutes leading up to the match. Attendees waited in long lines to load up on merchandise, concessions and beverages, and the excitement plateaued when the starting Knoxville squad emerged for its walk between sections 110 and 111 down to field level. Predictably, the lineup was unchanged from its three previous outings and was arranged in manager Ian Fuller’s preferred 4-2-3-1 formation. Spokane, under the stewardship of Leigh Veidman, was organized in the same manner.
The first passage in which One Knox’s offense tested Spokane’s backline was a direct precursor to the opening goal. In the third minute, Abel Caputo accepted a forward pass from Sivert Haugli and sprayed a long ball to Stavros Zarokostas on the right touchline. Tidily trapping it with his chest, the winger dribbled down the line, looked up and faked an early cross. Left back Derek Waldeck was fooled by the diversion, which allowed Zarokostas ample time to slide a low centering pass into the penalty area.
Deflected, the ball rolled behind both Babacar Diene and Nico Rosamilia, the latter of whom backtracked to lay it off to an onrushing Stuart Ritchie. The fullback rapped a hurried, first-time shot that had tremendous whip but curled high and wide of Carlos Merancio’s goal. The effort was rushed by the proximity of right back Lucky Opara, who had alertly closed the gap, but it portended what would happen less than a minute later.
In a progression rather reminiscent of the first, Kempes Tekiela lifted a diagonal ball over the top to Zarokostas. Controlling it in stride, he chopped it inside before quickly pushing it back toward the endline with the outside of his right boot. He took an extra touch at the same time Diene was arriving on a near-post run that sucked the central defenders from the goal box. Opara noticed Rosamilia drifting in to occupy the vacated space but couldn’t react before Zarokostas slotted a low pass past Merancio that the left winger tapped into an empty net.
Already at a fever pitch, the capacity crowd exploded when the ball rippled the twine. With the protective netting used for baseball lowered for the final and the goal having been scored in the north end of the Cove, conditions were ripe for celebrations to spill over into The Fort, the moniker for the standing section that houses the Scruffs. However, although there was plenty of intense yelling, gesturing to the multitudes and kissing of the badge, the players refrained from entering the stands. There were, after all, still 86 minutes left to play.
Waldeck was completely undone on the sequence, tied in knots by Zarokostas’ sharp, prescient movements, and he suffered the ultimate ignominy by winding up face down on the turf behind the goal after tripping over Camron Miller as the net bulged. A few minutes later, in the eighth, he compounded his errors and was further embarrassed by Zarokostas and One Knox.
Standing firm and shielding Waldeck to the ground to win a 50/50 ball, the wide man paused for the fullback to rise to his feet and catch up with him before sprinting out of reach and clipping a cross into the area. Miller averted the initial danger with a header out of the 18-yard box, but Waldeck misplayed a teammate’s soft header back to him. Failing to recognize the spin on the ball, he awkwardly slashed at it off the bounce, nudging it in the direction of Jaheim Brown.
The Knoxville right back got a toe on the ball just before Waldeck lunged and upended him. However, although the contact occurred inside of the area and the defender’s foot was nowhere near the ball, referee Brandon Stevis swallowed his whistle. Zarokostas regained possession and fizzed a low shot narrowly wide of goal from an acute angle, but both he and Brown remonstrated with the official afterward for awarding an advantage instead of a spot kick, as the action appeared to have warranted what should have been an ironclad penalty call.
In the 14th minute, Ritchie received the ball on a switch to the left flank and darted off on a solo run, slicing between two defenders and dragging a shot with his weaker right foot just beyond Merancio’s front stick before a third could collapse and offer an attempt at a block. The goalkeeper, a standout performer all year who earned a selection to the All-League Second Team, looked to have it covered, but slightly more pace and accuracy on the effort would have troubled him.
Nil Vinyals rescued Spokane in the dying embers of extra time in the semifinal against Portland by scoring the equalizer that forced penalties, and he was the first player to step up and convert a kick in the subsequent shootout. Consequently, it was hardly a surprise when the consistent difference maker raised his game to spark the Velocity’s industrious try at a comeback during a spell that began in the 21st minute.
Finding a pocket at the edge of the Knoxville area, he had an attempt at a cross blocked over the endline by League One Defender of the Year Jordan Skelton. Vinyals took the ensuing corner himself and delivered a tall inswinger that dropped onto the forehead of Miller, whose nodded effort looked to be going wide but was helped over the line by Skelton. The captain was the first to react to the follow-up set piece, going low to deny David García with a diving header that sailed away to safety.
In the 25th minute, defense turned into attack for Spokane when it repelled a free kick from a dangerous spot, led a counter and nearly capitalized on a rare error by Brown. The fullback’s slip allowed stalwart No. 10 Luis Gil the opportunity to fashion a through ball to Andre Lewis, but he employed too much weight on the pass to the midfielder, who stretched as far as possible to apply a finishing touch but couldn’t get on the end of it.
In the 37th minute, both Brown and Haugli went up to contest for a header from a long ball, with the former landing awkwardly on the ground and holding his back in pain upon impact. With the Velocity under no obligation to put the ball out of play since the injury wasn’t above his shoulders, Miller found Shavon John-Brown on the left flank, and the midfielder passed to Vinyals in the center. Patient in possession, he looked to his right before spotting and playing the ball to an overlapping Waldeck on the left.
With Brown still wincing and out of the play, the beleaguered left back had loads of time and space to shape a cross to the back stick for Gil, who rose above Ritchie and snapped a forceful downward header. A bounce off the grass took some sting off of the ball, and Sean Lewis’ perfect positioning further ensured that the lead would remain intact. The Goalkeeper of the Year got both gloves on the strong effort and fell on the ball to snuff out any further jeopardy. That Spokane’s only shot on goal in the game resulted from One Knox being at a disadvantage is indicative of just how little the away side could muster in the offensive third.
As the match transitioned into three minutes of stoppage time, Knoxville demonstrated its unparalleled ability to create chances from prolonged periods of possession. Tekiela glided through the center circle and found Diene on the left wing. Expertly holding the ball up, he incorporated Ritchie into the move. Drawing two defenders along the touchline, he chipped the ball between them to Rosamilia, who turned nicely and passed to Callum Johnson, whose driven ball switched play to Zarokostas on the right.
His back to goal, the winger cradled the ball with the outside of his right foot, swiveled and smacked a screamer with his left through Waldeck’s legs, which seemed to catch Merancio off guard. Perhaps expecting a cross or a curler to the far post, the keeper had been cheating to his right and had to scramble back to his left. Though the shot flew wide of the upright and Merancio again probably had it covered, the crowd recognized the brilliance of the buildup and expressed its appreciation with warm applause.
The allotted quarter hour between halves usually feels adequate, but this one seemed to elapse much faster given the increased volume of people. The queues – especially those for the facilities – were even longer at the break. As a result, quite a few folks had yet to make it back to their seats before One Knox was awarded a dubious penalty in the 52nd minute.
Johnson and Rosamilia had jogged from the left channel to more central positions, leaving Ritchie isolated along the touchline. Skelton found him with an insightful, incisive pass from the back, and the fullback played a sweet one-two with Rosamilia. Bursting down the seam, Ritchie latched onto the ball right before Opara swiped his legs out from underneath him with a late challenge at the boundary of the area. While the missed tackle was unquestionably a foul, and in real time it looked like the correct decision had been made, later replays suggested that the contact occurred just outside of the box.
Nevertheless, with the crowd still feeling hard done by the no-call on Brown in the first half, it loudly relished the chance for the home team to extend its lead from the spot – regardless of whether or not this occurrence was justified. In an attempt to psych him out, the congested collective occupying the Modelo Watering Hole hurled verbal abuse at the Spokane netminder, the playoff leader in penalty saves. But a hush fell over the crowd as a whole when Tekiela, Knoxville’s dead-ball specialist, began his run-up.
Opening his hips a couple of steps before striking the ball, he closed them at the last moment and lashed a left-footed blast into the right side of the gaping goalmouth as Merancio dove in the opposite direction. Mimicking Argentine star Paulo Dybala’s patented goal celebration, with one hand covering the lower portion of his face to simulate a mask, the local fan favorite couldn’t totally conceal the enormous, ear-to-ear grin splashed across his visage as he streaked past the jubilant assemblage.
Considering the body language it projected in the immediate aftermath of the goal that made the score 2-0 and the minimal threat it posed for the rest of the championship tilt, it seemed as if the Velocity already were accepting both the result and the fact that the club had come up short in consecutive final appearances. The away team pushed greater numbers forward as the minutes ticked by, but no serious chances ever materialized. The vaunted Knoxville backline was resolute in its duties, and the home side worked harder to add a third than Spokane – which managed only two shots in the second half, neither of which were on frame – did to reduce the deficit.
One Knox nearly added to the lead when it disrupted a Velocity possession in the 83rd minute and launched a counter. Angelo Kelly, who had entered the contest for Johnson in the 63rd, was the architect of the move. After Haugli won a challenge in his own area, the ball bounced to the midfielder, who passed laterally to Mark Doyle, another substitute, who replaced Rosamilia in the 76th minute. The winger found Caputo, who held it for a beat and slid it back to Kelly.
With Doyle ahead to his left and Diene making a run down the middle channel, Kelly had two viable passing options on either side of a lone defender but was dragged down from behind by Mark Hernandez as he powered through the center circle. Stevis motioned for an advantage, though, when Kelly instantly popped up, picked up his dribble and found Doyle on the flank.
Exchanging passes with Kelly and Ritchie, Doyle momentarily slowed the advance before splitting two defenders and hitting Ritchie on the overlap, and the left back drove a pacey low cross to Diene at the front stick. Sandwiched between markers, the striker got a touch on the ball but couldn’t direct it on target, redirecting it just wide of the post. The attack constituted the last meaningful move from either side, with the countdown to the final whistle the only bit of drama that remained.
As the game edged toward 95 minutes, Gil thumped a free kick into the Knoxville wall, Skelton booted the ball up the pitch and that was that. Exultant pandemonium reigned, as 7,500 delirious fans celebrated a historic triumph with the team and coaching staff that brought it to fruition.
Section 118 was the first gathering place for the overjoyed players, who embraced the diehards whose loyalty, vocal support, physical presence and rhythmic backing impelled them to such great heights. Rookie matchwinner Rosamilia, one of the most animated of the bunch postgame, was announced as the MVP of the final. As the revelry shifted to the west end of the Cove for the official trophy presentation, the squad readied itself with bottles and cans of libations like it had when it clinched the regular-season title.
The lifting of the cup was an emotional spectacle to behold and the blissful culmination of a hugely successful campaign. Reluctant to depart the park at the zenith of a season that comprised exactly eight months, many in attendance lingered until the final shred of confetti had fallen and the last of the players had left the ground. A companion piece synopsizing what the club accomplished over the course of those 245 days and detailing the individual contributions that manifested in the club winning the double will be published in the coming days.
For the present, however, taking inventory of all the pageantry and happiness on display before, during and after this momentous match, one takeaway is foremost in my thoughts, and it just so happens to sync with the organization’s motto: There’s only One Knox.
