Inaugural soccer match at Covenant Health Park sets league attendance record
The rain of the past week was gone by midafternoon Saturday, replaced by brilliant blue skies, towering cumulus cloud formations and warmer-than-expected temperatures. Turning onto Jackson Avenue from Gay Street, the commotion of the prematch block party, already in full swing, could be heard emanating from Central Street in the Old City. Entering the fan zone organized by our friends at Born & Raised Productions to the familiar and welcoming strains of Tinca Tinca performing atop a stage that backed up to Summit Hill Drive, it was immediately apparent that this event had attracted more people than the March 8 shindig during which the establishment of a One Knox women’s team was announced and the 2025 away kit was revealed.
Streams of fans, many of whom were decked out in team gear, navigated tthe roadway, engaging with vendors and activations and excitedly interacting with one another. Libations provided by Peaceful Side Brewery were sipped by the adult attendees while kids enjoyed lawn games and facepainting. Ducking into Barley’s for a bit for some shade, I passed between a couple members of the Scruffs, the hardcore supporters group that would lead the march to the stadium, at the door. Both were brandishing a drum in one hand and a pizza box in the other, the contents of the latter providing adequate sustenance for the former to be pounded for a full 90 minutes plus stoppage time. More groups of fans, including some of the Riot Printing crew responsible for designing One Knox’s merch, filled the interior of the taproom and spilled out onto its spacious outdoor patio.
Having picked up our media passes in advance, the BLANK staff joined the large procession of folks making its way to Covenant Health Park. Having pushed hard for a sellout of this inaugural game at its new home, the team was not just successful in this regard – it smashed the League One attendance record, previously set at 6,000, by moving 6,378 tickets (including standing-room-only admission) for this interleague cup match against FC Tulsa of the USL Championship, a tier above One Knox’s division.
The early action suggested that the home side was both literally and figuratively out of its league. A nervy first five minutes saw Tulsa draw first blood when an innocuous-looking through ball wrongfooted left center-back Scott McLeod and allowed Taylor Calheira to go in unopposed against goalkeeper Sean Lewis, a onetime member of the Oklahoma club. The forward celebrated his 23rd birthday by shaping his body as if he were aiming for the far post before slotting the ball to the onrushing netminder’s left in the second minute. Barely a minute after play resumed, it was nearly 2-0 on an own goal when Abel Caputo slid to intercept a low cross from the right flank and squibbed the ball off of his toe and onto the near post. With Lewis clearly beaten, One Knox was relieved to see the deflection hit the outside of the stick and bounce past the endline to safety.
From that moment on, though, the team composed itself and slowly came back into the match. It began dominating possession, much of it in the opponent’s half, and put together some nice passages of play that included a few slick one-two passes. One movement down the left wing looked particularly promising, but a narrow offside call thwarted the attack. With momentum on its side, One Knox earned a series of free kicks and corners, none of which produced a clear scoring chance but kept the pressure on the away side and brought the capacity crowd – energetic and vocal in its backing for the entirety of the evening – even more into the match.
Tulsa rarely ventured past the center line in the first half but looked dangerous whenever it did. Still, the unrelenting duress it experienced defensively was exposing cracks on its backline, and it ultimately conceded an equalizer in the 34th minute. After One Knox worked a throw-in from the left touchline back to Lewis, a driven long ball from the keeper met the head of Sivert Haugli, who expertly flicked it on to Stavros Zarokostas, who looked up and found Mikkel Gøling crashing into the box. The cutback cross split the defenders and just eluded the grasp of goaltender Johan Peñaranda, and the midfielder – who would be named man of the match at the conclusion of the contest – coolly buried his finish into a gaping net. The crowd erupted, and the Knoxville squad celebrated en masse.
With Tulsa almost leveling the possession battle by controlling the ball for the majority of the next 10 minutes, the half ebbed to a mostly uneventful end, and the multitude in the stands collectively released its breath after three minutes of extra time. It had witnessed a solid exhibition by the home side in the first 45 minutes, with the scoreline flattering Tulsa despite the club’s bright start to the proceedings. The teams each made two changes at the half, with Kempes Tekiela replacing Babacar Diene to lead the forward line and Dani Fernandez coming on for Jordan Skelton in central defense.
If the first half was an entertaining watch, the second frame was exhilarating. As previously mentioned, the atmosphere off the pitch was electric, but the action on it intensified as the seconds ticked by, as well. A low 50th-minute volley from the edge of the penalty area by Zarokostas flew just wide of the post and to the right of a late-diving Peñaranda, who appeared to be sighted by his defenders. If the keeper was slow to react to that shot, however, he more than atoned for it a couple of minutes later by pulling off a blinding save against Tekiela. Picking up a loose ball in the center circle, Gøling sent an incisive through pass to the left to Mark Doyle, who played a first-time ball to the striker, who was stymied from point-blank range. To be fair, the ball bounced up on him in a section of the field where temporary sod had been laid over the dirt baseball infield, and he still made decent contact, but the goalie did well to come out to close down the angles and palm the ball away.
Perhaps frustrated at being held in check by lower-league opposition, Tulsa’s play grew chippier as the match wore on. Boubacar Diallo was shown a yellow card for a hard challenge in the first half, but the rough stuff escalated in the second. When Arthur Rogers made the mistake of trying to dribble out of the back, Doyle stuck in a boot and dislodged the ball to Tekiela, who touched it around Abdoulaye Cissoko. The imposing defender made a lunging attempt at a tackle, missing the ball and sending the striker sprawling to the turf inside the penalty area. He received a yellow, though his berating of the official and continued insistence that no wrongdoing had occurred possibly warranted stricter punishment. Following some extended gamesmanship, the player who had been taken down in the box stepped up to the spot at the end of the park populated by a wall of home fans. Opening his hips, Tekiela sent the keeper the wrong way, found the bottom left corner of the goal off the inside of the post and set up a furious finish to the match.
Directly after the restart, Tulsa’s Lamar Batista was harried and fouled by Zarokostas. As he went down, the defender executed a leg whip on the One Knox player, a moment of indiscipline that would earn him a yellow. Not long after Doyle bent in a gently flighted ball that Gøling lifted just over the bar, Zarokostas picked up a caution of his own for a professional foul a few paces inside his own half that nipped a Tulsa attack in the bud. In a defensive tactical switch, he was substituted for Callum Johnson with 10 minutes remaining in regulation.
With a stiff wind at their backs and a growing sense of desperation, Tulsa’s players rallied by pressing high, winning possession back often and throwing wave after wave of attacking pressure at One Knox. The defense stayed resolute, repelling each move and attempting to hit on the counter. The full-backs, which had bombed forward on overlapping runs throughout the first half, were more conservative in their positioning and were helped in their efforts by the other two lines. Tekiela nearly escaped two defenders on one of the quick breaks, but cutting the ball over to his favored left foot allowed one of them to recover and block his shot. When Doyle outmuscled Diallo, dispossessed him of the ball and went galloping down the right wing on another, he was dragged to the ground from behind by Batista, who didn’t even bother turning around to acknowledge the red card held aloft by the referee, instead blasting the ball into the stands and continuing to jog off the pitch and into the visitors’ dressing room.
Up a man and entering injury time, the home side had to feel good about its chances of pulling the upset, and the rowdy crowd was duly amped at that prospect. Due to the number of shenanigans that had taken place during the half, though, five minutes were tacked onto the end of the match, and that proved to be four and a half too many. In a move that shared similarities with Knoxville’s first goal, a ball was floated forward from the back with about 30 seconds to go. Having moved up to the front line in order to win aerial challenges, Cissoko rose high and nodded the ball into the path of second-half sub Al Hassan Touré, the Guinea international taking a deft touch before snapping a smart half-volley into the bottom right side of the goal. The tally was top-notch, but its timing was excruciating for the home supporters, who fell eerily silent when the ball struck the back of the net.
All was not lost for One Knox, however. A Jägermeister Cup match that ends in a tie goes straight to penalties, which meant the team still could send everyone in Covenant Health Park home happy. With Tulsa’s first penalty taker telegraphing the direction of a shot that nevertheless drew a fine save from Lewis, the second dragging his effort wide of the goal altogether and One Knox converting all of its spot kicks, the stadium, deflated just a handful of minutes prior, was back at full volume when Fernandez stepped up with the opportunity to walk it off. Diving to his right, Peñaranda watched helplessly as the ball flew to his left and into the goal.
The record crowd was nowhere near done roaring its approval when the first fireworks exploded overhead, superseding its noise but illuminating all the smiles on faces, high-fives being exchanged and general rapture of the throng. I’m not usually a fan of ostentatious pyrotechnics, but they did provide a fitting nightcap to an enthralling game on a historic evening, and it was a memorable way for One Knox to commemorate the launch of soccer at its new ground.
