May 10, 2022 – United Soccer League Championship (USL) – Louisville City FC News Release
Louisville City FC entered Tuesday night’s Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup game at Detroit City FC unbeaten in 2022. The hosts, meanwhile, hadn’t been defeated at their home Keyworth Stadium since September of last year.
Something had to give, and it took LouCity prevailing in another penalty kick shootout to decide the Round of 32 matchup.
The boys in purple made all four tries from the spot, while LouCity goalkeeper Kyle Morton denied Detroit’s Rhys Williams and saw Stephen Carroll sky the final attempt to advance the visitors in U.S. Soccer’s annual knockout national championship tournament.
LouCity will learn its Round of 16 opponent during a draw Thursday and, at this stage in the competition, figures to see – and potentially host – a Major League Soccer foe.
“The game played out almost exactly how we thought it would,” said coach Danny Cruz. “This is one of the most difficult places I’ve certainly ever been in the USL. The atmosphere’s fantastic. The field is difficult to play the type of football that we want to play on it. But at the end of the day, we talked about making sure that if a team wants to come fight us, we win that fight.”
Sean Totsch, Niall McCabe, Wilson Harris and Ian Soler all made their penalties, with this shootout running much shorter than LouCity’s last. In the Third Round, it took 10 sequences to determine another victory, that one over MLS Next Pro’s St. Louis CITY SC. LouCity dispatched USL League One’s Chattanooga Red Wolves when it entered the Open Cup for the Second Round.
Tuesday’s dramatics harkened back to the only other meeting between these clubs, a 2016 penalty shootout victory for LouCity in the Open Cup. The two sides will get more familiar with one another moving forward now that Detroit has joined the USL Championship.
Going back to the 2018 Open Cup, LouCity made its longest run in this tournament to the quarterfinals.
“I think it’s a lot…