Compressed slate of fixtures concludes with two wins, draw in league play, narrow cup loss
The first congested run of matches – three in a week – for One Knoxville SC in the 2025 USL League One season commenced with a gritty 2-1 comeback win on the road versus South Georgia Tormenta FC on Saturday, July 12. Having arrived in Statesboro late the night before due to traffic issues, the team’s endurance was further tested with a first-half weather delay that lasted for more than an hour. Its record against the Pelicans had been excellent as of late, though, with the four previous games resulting in shutout victories, including a 3-0 romp in the reverse fixture on June 21.
One Knox got off to a sluggish start in its 100th match as a club, however, looking a step slow early on and going down a goal after 13 minutes. An intercepted pass fell to Tormenta’s Mason Tunbridge, who sidestepped a defender before delivering a beautifully weighted long through ball to a streaking Niall Reid-Stephen on the right channel. The forward carried far too much pace for the Knoxville backline, and he buried a left-footed shot into the far upper corner of the net. Goalkeeper Sean Lewis did well to get the barest of touches on the ball, but the powerful effort was too much for him to truly contest.
The next spell of play was heavily weighted in favor of Tormenta, with the home side threatening to increase its lead on a few occasions. One Knox’s defense was resolute, though, denying final entry passes and blocking shots when they did sneak through. When Knoxville regained possession, much of it consisted of lateral passing at the back and didn’t involve much offensive penetration. A hydration break preceded the weather delay by just a couple minutes, with the pauses allowing the away side to regroup.
When the match resumed after the latter interruption, the sun had fully set, and One Knox clearly looked like the better of the two teams. Within a minute, Mark Doyle and Babacar Diene led a break that resulted in a corner from the left flag. Dani Fernandez’s flicked header beat the keeper but skipped off the crossbar. There were shouts for a penalty a minute later when Diene went down in the box, but the referee was unmoved by the calls. The balance of play stabilized some before the halftime whistle, but Knoxville, though trailing at the break, had signaled its intent.
One Knox continued on the front foot to begin the second half. Although they had pressed matters since the restart, it wasn’t until the 66th minute that the Scruffy Boys found an equalizer. A period of fairly innocuous midfield possession heralded a sudden, incisive forward pass from Jordan Skelton to Mikkel Gøling, who lifted a searching diagonal ball that bounced once before meeting the head of a crashing Doyle. The left winger had worked his way past his defender and leaned into the delivery. It wasn’t quite a diving header, but the far-post finish was aesthetically pleasing regardless.
Once the breakthrough occurred, it seemed as though the dam might burst. Another scoring chance developed almost immediately after the goal, as a good passing move led to Doyle shooting from a central position just inside the penalty area. Although he didn’t offer much in the way of protestation, it looked like the Irishman was clipped just as he made contact with the ball, which skittered wide of the right post. Soon after, a driven cross from the left by an overlapping Stuart Ritchie, who took a heavy touch but was able to sprint to catch up with the ball before it crossed the endline, nearly resulted in a goal-of-the-season contender. Gøling was a late arrival to the box, and his bullet header rattled the underside of the bar but rebounded harmlessly away, and Doyle’s follow-up volley was foiled. The initial chance wasn’t a wasted opportunity per se, but it was one that the experienced Danish midfielder would have been disappointed not to put away.
Although it didn’t feature many clear-cut opportunities, the ensuing action was frenetic as both teams sought a go-ahead tally. Ultimately, though, the match would be decided from the spot, and it was two second-half substitutions that combined to earn the penalty. Collecting a pass from Angelo Kelly, Stavros Zarokostas made a weaving run past several defenders and into the penalty area. One tried to drag him down prior to him entering the box, but two were successful in doing so once he did. Thabo Nare grabbed his shirt while Gabriel Alves went low to take him out. The referee didn’t hesitate in pointing to the spot.
Fernandez, who would be named League One player of the week for his heroics, stepped up to take the kick, and one of the longest-tenured players in the squad didn’t falter, coolly slotting the ball to his right. Tormenta keeper Austin Pack, who had a horrorshow of a performance in the last meeting between the clubs, correctly guessed the direction of the shot and dove valiantly to keep the ball out, but he was unable to get more than a few fingers on it and managed only to push it into the side netting. The 87th-minute goal must have been deflating for the bottom-dwelling side, but South Georgia, to its credit, almost leveled the match before added time.
In the 89th minute, Yaniv Bazini whipped in a delicious cross from the right flank that found a wide-open Sebastián Vivas at the back post. It took a slight touch off the head of Skelton just before it reached him, however, and the Argentine forward could not react to the misdirection. It initially looked as though he simply were caught in two minds trying to choose between a header and a volley, but a replay on the broadcast showed that the Geordie’s intervention was enough to thwart the opportunity. From there, One Knox reverted into a defensive shell and was able to see out the match. Some egregious timewasting from Lewis, who received a caution for his troubles, aided the cause.
One Knox returned home to Covenant Health Park for a matchup against AV Alta FC, second in the league table in its first year of existence, on Wednesday, July 16. Like they had been in Statesboro the previous Saturday, the weather conditions were hot and humid. While the California franchise, based in a charter city on the western edge of the Mojave Desert, is used to the former, the latter likely presented a challenge, and the away team allowed Knoxville to set the tenor by controlling the lion’s share of possession from the jump.
Before everyone got settled in their seats, though, and in what will be a concerning development for both player and club, Doyle, who seemingly had just fully recovered from a hamstring injury that had sidelined him for a month earlier in the season, went down with a non-contact injury off the ball very early on and needed to be replaced by Nico Rosamilia. Though the Rutgers product has performed well in his rookie campaign, Doyle’s directness, speed and goalscoring acumen will be missed should he be out for another extended period.
The home side was nevertheless undaunted and made inroads toward Alta’s goal as the initial portion of the first half progressed. These endeavors were rewarded in the 22nd minute when Ritchie found a seam down the left flank, dished the ball to Rosamilia and continued his run. The movement drew defenders away from the substitute, who was left isolated on the wing. Taking a touch to his right, he floated a cross to the far edge of the penalty area to Jaheim Brown, who brought it down, muscled the ball through the foot of an AV player and curled a left-footed effort inside of the near post. The quick strike from his swinging peg looked to catch Carlos Ávilez off guard, as the keeper was still leaning to his right when the ball nestled into the net to his left. The shot perhaps took a deflection on its way in, but Brown won’t be bothered, as the tally marked his first goal for the club.
One Knox nearly doubled its lead straightaway. A high press forced a slow-rolling back pass from the last defender, and only Ávilez sensing the hazard and sprinting out to clear the ball prevented Zarokostas from going in unopposed. After a cooling break at the half-hour mark, a seamless move that started with a goal kick almost sprang the Greek winger again, but a rather questionable slide tackle from behind denied him the opportunity and left him crumpled on the pitch. Surprisingly, the challenge was ruled to be licit, but Zarokostas was lucky to limp away from it. Ritchie was not as fortunate a few minutes later, however. Though it was difficult to ascertain how or when he picked up the knock, he seemed to be moving a bit gingerly as he made way for Knoxville native Heath Martin in the 37th minute.
Zarokostas continued to be the first-half danger man, forcing a tough low save with a sighted wormburner in the 41st minute and drawing a foul that resulted in an Alta yellow card soon thereafter. While Antelope Valley was able to flip the edge in possession not long after the goal was scored, it didn’t do much with the advantage and made few forays forward, and One Knox held a deserved lead entering halftime.
Alta looked a more motivated and improved side coming out on the other side of the break, but a fierce Gøling shot on the counter in the 52nd minute was the first instance of either goal being troubled in the second half. The sliced effort likely was an attempted cross that he mishit, but he no doubt would have claimed it had it beaten Ávilez at his near post. A few minutes later, Gøling rose for a header from a corner, directed it solidly downward and at an awkward height for the AV keeper but too centrally for it to pose any real threat. The lanky Dane then finished a whirlwind 10-minute stretch by dispossessing an opponent of the ball in midfield, striding forward and slanting an inch-perfect through ball to Rosamilia, who maybe could have played a first-touch pass across goal to a wide-open Diene but instead opted for a shot – which was blocked by a sliding defender – when his first touch let him down and took him wider than he would have liked.
Slowly but surely, Alta built up possession in more advanced areas, though it didn’t produce a shot on frame until Adam Aoumaich’s driven, bending ball from outside the left corner of the box in the 68th minute looped right onto the head of Walmer Martínez, who had bombed forward from his position at right back. The textbook cross evaded Fernandez, and Johan Garibay, who was making his first start in goal since May 9, could do nothing to stop the defender from nodding the ball home from close range.
The crowd, expectedly a bit thin for a midweek match in high temperatures and under ominous skies, had been vocal despite its size but went flat upon the tying goal being scored. The team, too, was sent reeling and fell into a defensive posture for the next several minutes. Even a triplicate of subs a little past the 70-minute mark did little to stem the tide. Garibay was able to palm away a cross in the 75th minute, come out to punch the resulting corner and then punch a sharp header away to safety. The flurry precipitated the second-half hydration break, a much-needed respite for One Knox.
Reemerging from the breather, it seemed as though AV, which held a staggering amount of possession to that point, would go on to find a winner. It was Knoxville, though, that went ahead 10 minutes before full time. And rather than coming on the counter, it occurred after a beautiful, flowing move that started with a smart Garibay throw and involved almost all 11 players getting a touch on the ball before Callum Johnson finished it off. Kelly, who has been a stalwart in midfield for the last several games in which he’s featured, was crucial in its impetus. Coming short to collect a pass from Martin, he turned and cut sharply away from a defender before spraying the ball to Brown, who was flying down the right flank. Continuing his run, Kelly received a return pass from Brown and diverted it with a first-time backheel flick right into the path of Johnson.
The Englishman’s shot took a massive deflection off of Luca Mastrantonio en route to the net, but, like Brown in the first half, Johnson will have been ecstatic to bag his first tally of the year in any circumstance, but especially after such a well-worked move. He was obviously being dragged back from behind as he released his shot, too, and it would have been interesting to see what punishment the foul would have entailed had the play not resulted in a goal. As it were, though, One Knox was in pole position to win the match.
AV was stunned but continued to push forward as it had for the majority of the proceedings. The home team’s energy was piqued, however, and the reserves provided the requisite spark, and collectively Knoxville repelled attack after attack. When Rosamilia stymied Jerry Desdunes with a tackle at the edge of the box following a 91st-minute corner and took off with the ball, nearly the entire Alta squad was in his rearview mirror. Finding Kimarni Smith on the left, he kept up with the play and remained level with the last defender. Smith pushed past his man and scuffed a shot/cross across the goal which Rosamilia, alone at the back post, tapped in to ensure the three points stayed in the Old City. There were questions about the legality of the challenge that turned over the possession, but the ref, who had been ideally positioned to make a call in the event of any impropriety, swallowed his whistle.
The 3-1 victory snapped Antelope Valley’s nine-game unbeaten streak and allowed One Knox to creep up to fifth in the standings with three games still in hand on all of the teams around it save for Chattanooga Red Wolves SC, which had played two more matches and was two points ahead of Knoxville. The next game, a much-hyped affair that had been heavily promoted for weeks on social media and in official communications, took place the succeeding Saturday, July 19, against another fledgling team in Westchester SC. However, unlike AV Alta, the New York-based club thus far has found life in League One to be difficult, entering the contest having lost four of its last five – including three in a row – and ranked 12th out of 14 teams.
Still, Westchester had pushed One Knox to the brink (albeit with a man advantage for more than a half) before conceding late for a 1-1 draw when the teams had met June 7 in Mount Vernon. Knoxville would have been looking to exact a measure of revenge on the traveling squad, but the week’s exertions perhaps caught up with the home side, as the spoils again were shared 1-1.
Fernandez stepping in for Ritchie at left back meant that Sivert Haugli took up residency in the left center-back role, and Rosamilia was a straight swap for Doyle at left wing. Johnson also got the start ahead of Gøling, but the team was otherwise unchanged from the one that had taken care of business versus Alta. The most exciting personnel news of the night involved a couple players on the bench, as Jamie Thomas, One Knox’s first-ever signing, returned to availability after a long absence and Hardin Valley Academy standout/Maryville college enrollee Ben Brophy was registered ahead of the match. While Thomas was an unused substitute, Brophy would come on late for his first taste of professional football.
The aggressive 4-3-3 formation provided immediate dividends for Ian Fuller’s troops, as Zarokostas broke down the right flank and played in a dangerous low cross after half a minute. Forty-five seconds later, Haugli launched a towering long ball from just outside his own penalty area and in the direction of Diene. It’s hard to ascertain what Westchester goalie Dane Jacomen was thinking in coming so far off his line to try to cut out the pass, but he grossly misjudged the ball’s flight in doing so. It took a high bounce off of the turf, over his head and onto the instep of Diene, who calmly lobbed it into the open net.
Although it had taken the initiative and looked like it might add to its early lead, Knoxville found the score knotted at 1-all after a stunning strike from Westchester captain Juan Obregón in the 16th minute. With One Knox camping out on the edge of the away box, Noah Powder stepped up to intercept a hopeful through ball from Abel Caputo and played it forward to Prince Saydee. The Liberian international took a few precise dribbles, freeing himself from a retreating Caputo to release Obregón on the left channel. Cutting inside Skelton to create separation from the defender and space for a shot, the league leader in goals added to his tally with a venomous, swerving effort from at least 30 yards out that dipped over Garibay and into the far-post netting.
There was so much action on the ball, in fact, that it ricocheted around the entire interior of the goal before spinning away at the opposite end from where it had entered. The home crowd, robust at well over 4,000 attendees, was left murmuring for several minutes at the indisputably spectacular equalizer, the team’s ninth from beyond 18 yards. (That figure leads the league, as well; with three months of the season remaining, it’s easy to envision Obregón and company breaking the record of 14.)
Aside from a tame effort straight at Jacomen from Zarokostas and a couple of decent free-kick opportunities late in the half – the second of which, from Kelly, didn’t test the keeper but flew close over the bar – nothing much of note happened before the break for One Knox, and Westchester rarely threatened apart from a weak shot Garibay parried over the endline on 13 minutes and the lone devastating counterattack. Knoxville held a huge advantage in possession and had outshot the opponent 7-2 at the half.
Fernandez picked up a yellow soon after halftime, the extended follow-through on a challenge serving as a harbinger of the physicality and chippiness that would define the second frame. No player was sent off, but the teams combined for almost 30 fouls and eight cautions, and much of the action was a slog that was confined to the middle third of the pitch. Gøling and Smith replaced Johnson and Zarokostas, respectively, after an hour, which injected some offensive intent and rapidity into the Knoxville attack, but the stop-start nature of the match didn’t allow play to be stretched until later on.
Garibay shepherded another booming drive from Obregón wide of his post in the 65th minute, and Martin came on for Caputo a short time after. On 70 minutes, Gøling got caught with the studs of Taimu Okiyoshi, the Westchester substitute midfielder earning a card for his rash tackle. The Knoxville player writhed on the ground for a while but was able to recover and carry on. With 10 minutes to go, the home side really began to turn the screw.
A long period of patient possession preceded Haugli slipping Rosamilia in on the right side of the penalty area in the 81st minute. The winger played the ball to Kelly and wanted a return pass for a give-and-go, but the latter opted to turn and take a shot. Rosamilia was emphatic in his demonstrations when it was blocked, but Kelly’s central positioning encouraged an effort on goal. One Knox retained the ball, and after it was switched out to the left, it was worked back over to the right, where, following a throw-in, Rosamilia sent in an inviting cross that Gøling battled off his defender to win but was only able to nod on to Jacomen. Skelton got his head onto a deep free kick in the 83rd minute but couldn’t direct it on frame.
Five minutes of extra time were added, the second of which saw Westchester threaten on a ragged sequence that culminated in a meek bicycle attempt. With two minutes left, Brown went down in a heap after going up for a header and landing awkwardly. He looked worse for the wear sprawled on the field and covering his face with his hands, but he was able to hobble off and then return for the rest of the game, though he clearly was favoring his left ankle for the remainder. A last-gasp, replayed, long free kick fell to Martin, who blasted the ball well over the bar, over the perimeter netting in place for baseball and up into the crowd, triggering the final whistle.
It was a frustrating yet fitting finale to a match that had been within Knoxville’s grasp all evening but ultimately ended with both teams earning a single point. Dominating every positive statistical category wasn’t enough for One Knox to make up any ground in the standings, as the club remains tied with FC Naples for fifth in the League One table. Chattanooga, which resoundingly beat top-spot Spokane Velocity FC 3-0 in concurrent action, vaulted into second.
The Red Wolves, 1-0 winners in the last encounter between the sides, then hosted Knoxville on Saturday, July 26, in the final Jägermeister Cup tilt of 2025 for both clubs, as they needed to finish out group play despite having been eliminated from the interleague competition prior to kickoff. Given the compressed schedule and sweltering conditions, it would have been understandable if the teams were to have phoned it in for this superfluous matchup, but both treated the battle for state bragging rights seriously.
The game was a scrappy, hard-fought affair that comprised several heavy challenges, and One Knox dictated the play and again controlled every statistical category (including a whopping 74% of the possession and a 24% edge in passing accuracy), but Scenic City emerged victorious in another 1-0 scoreline. The 66th-minute winner featured some sloppy buildup play, but central defender Tobi Jnohope bundled the ball past a sliding Garibay with a well-placed effort, and his side held on until the final whistle for a meaningless triumph but one that still will sting for the visiting team. With how he finished the previous match, Brown was a surprise starter but left with 10 minutes to go in the first half, and Fuller rotated his squad with three changes to begin the second.
Another tough matchup awaits One Knox when it transitions back to league play for its next home game against Charlotte on Wednesday, July 30. It was outclassed in a 3-1 loss to the Independence in mid-May and will look to avenge that defeat at 7 p.m. at Covenant Health Park. Yet another quick turnaround will see Knoxville welcome Portland Hearts of Pine at the same time the following Saturday, Aug. 2. Be sure to wear your orange and white on the latter evening to celebrate Vols Night, and remember to stick around afterward for fireworks.
