Off back-to-back USL Championship losses, Louisville City FC rebounded Saturday at Lynn Family Stadium, where the boys in purple dominated en route to a 1-0 victory over Detroit City FC.
A frustrating afternoon marked by quality chances and near misses finally turned in LouCity’s favor in the 80th minute, when Dylan Mares looped a cross to Wilson Harris for the game’s only goal.
“I thought it was a complete performance for the group,” said coach Danny Cruz. “…I thought we controlled the first half, and I thought we did an excellent job in the second half. It’s pretty clear to everybody that where we need to do better is in the final third. Fortunately for us, we’ll have a day off here and a full week of training to work through some of those things.
“All in all, I want the players to enjoy this win. That is the standard, and we need to make sure that no complacency sets in.”
Harris, the club’s leading scorer last year, was making his first league start of the year on the return from a preseason head injury. Mares subbed on as he makes a return from a broken thumb suffered a couple of weeks into the young campaign.
Their connection served as an indication that LouCity should improve as others get healthy — and distance itself from uncharacteristic recent defeats.
“Winning is huge no matter how you do it,” Harris said. “I think the locker room’s going to be buzzing. We’re going to be back to our regular selves.”
Harris’ goal broke a 302-minute league scoring drought dating back to March 18. Over that span, the boys in purple lost a pair of games by an 8-0 aggregate score.
In addition to contributions from Harris and Maris, LouCity returned U.S. youth international defender Josh Wynder to its starting lineup, and Detroit didn’t manage a single shot on goal That led to rookie goalkeeper Oliver Semmle’s third clean sheet across all competitions, including Wednesday’s U.S. Open Cup win over Lexington SC.
“As a group, collectively we were playing really well together,” Harris said. “I think defensively it showed in the midweek game. But I think just getting more repetitions as a group we’ll hopefully start scoring three or four.”
Offensively, the boys in purple generated enough to win by a wider margin, peppering Detroit with a season-high 21 shots — 13 inside the box and 7 on goal.
The goal scorer Harris built to his big moment. First, he got in behind for a 17th-minute shot he pulled wide left of the target. In the second half, a 76th-minute header flew just over the bar.
Harris made good on an opportunity not long after. Detroit only half cleared Mares’ corner kick, and the ball returned to him on the left wing for another cross into the box that landed to Harris’ foot.
“It’s always difficult when you’re creating these opportunities and they’re not going your way,” Mares said. “You sometimes get it in the back of your head that it might be that kind of day. But you keep pushing. You can’t stop until the 90th minute, and that’s what we did. We were able to continue to push and finally break through.”
Back in the win column, LouCity has a week to prepare for a massive regular season matchup. San Antonio FC visits next Saturday night for a rematch of the 2022 USL Championship Final kicking off at 7:30 p.m. at Lynn Family Stadium.
Game Summary: Louisville City FC vs. Detroit City FC
Date: April 8, 2023
Venue: Lynn Family Stadium
Kickoff: 3 p.m. ET
Weather: 61 degrees, partly cloudy
Attendance: 9,548
Scoring
Louisville City FC (0, 1, 1)
Detroit City FC (0, 0, 0)
Goals
Louisville City FC:
80’ Wilson Harris (Dylan Mares)
Lineups
Louisville City FC: 28 — Oliver Semmle, 13 — Amadou Dia, 66 — Josh Wynder, 4 — Sean Totsch, 15 — Manny Perez, 12 — Tyler Gibson, 36 — Paolo DelPiccolo, 5 — Rasmus Thellufsen, 9 — Jorge Gonzalez (74’ 22 — Dylan Mares), 10 — Brian Ownby (74’ 77 — Enoch Mushagalusa), 14 — Wilson Harris (88’ 23 — Elijah Wynder)
Subs not used: 1 — Kyle Morton, 19 — Oscar Jimenez, 51 — Ramzi Qawasmy, 8 — Carlos Moguel Jr.
Head coach: Danny Cruz
Detroit City FC: 1 — Nate Steinwascher, 15 — Matt Lewis (39’ 4 — Jalen Robinson), 5 — Stephen Carroll, 12 — Michael Bryant, 26 — Richard Ballard (46’ 91 — Oniel Fisher), 6 — Tommy McCabe, 21 — Maxi Rodriguez, 2 — Rhys Williams, 7 — Skage Simonsen (46’ 27 — Yazeed Matthews), 11 — Connor Rutz, 9 — Ben Morris (71’ 8 — Abdoulaye Diop)
Subs not used: 13 — Ryan Shellow, 14 — Cy Goddard, 19 — Adrian Billhardt
Head coach: Trevor James
Stats Summary: Louisville City FC / Detroit City FC
Shots: 21 / 9
Shots on Goal: 7 / 0
Possession: 58.7% / 41.3%
Fouls: 8 / 14
Offside: 2 / 2
Corner Kicks: 7 / 2
Discipline Summary
Detroit City FC:
45’+ Maxi Rodriguez (yellow)
Referee: Sergio Demianchuk
