Louisville City FC Update: LCFC Loses Friendly; Rochester Rhinos Up Next

It was a bizarre scoreline from a bizarre match on April 9 in Edwardsville, IL. The Southern Illinois University Cougars hosted Louisville City FC in a midseason friendly for Orlando City’s USL affiliate, and came away with the 1-0 victory after a weather delay that knocked out the floodlights at Ralph Korte Stadium.

LCFC, given a bye week after its first two games in USL play, started an 11 with a mix of regular starters and backups, including seldom used backup keeper Greg Ranjitsingh, former Tottenham striker Cameron Lancaster, and defender Enrique Montano.

After a back and forth game which saw Ranjitsingh make a few key saves, neither side had a goal to their credit in what was a shortened halftime, in an attempt to get the game in before impending whether. However, in the 67th minute, the proceedings took a turn for the unusual as the stadium lighting system went down due to a thunderstorm.

However, the rebound fell right to SIUE forward TC Hull and, with Ranjitsingh out of his net, he would knock it home easily to put the 1979 NCAA Champions into the lead. With under a minute to play, Kadeem Dacres had a chance to bring LCFC back level off of a long ball, but the shot went wide.

The loss is the first in Louisville City club history.

LCFC will be back in USL action on Thursday night, at home against the New England Revolution’s affiliate, the Rochester Rhinos.

Highlights from the loss:

U.S. Open Cup Pairings Announced

The U.S. Soccer Federation announced the second-round pairings of this year’s Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Tournament, which will be the 102nd edition of the competition. Louisville City will play on the road against the winner of a first-round tilt between Lansing United, an NPSL club from Lansing, MI, and RWB Adria of the USASA, out of Chicago.

Regardless of location, Louisville City's opener in the U.S. equivalent of the English FA Cup will be played on May 20 at 7 p.m. ET.

Notes

Louisville City players and owner Wayne Estopinal went on the local ESPN Radio affiliate Monday morning for a short interview. Some of the highlights:

• On Louisville's MLS chances: "I think a market like Louisville — we need to be in the discussion, come 2020 when the MLS expands beyond 24 teams. But is there a guarantee? Nobody connected with Louisville City is making any guarantee about it."
• On similarities between Orlando's beginnings and Louisville's: "We're way ahead of where we were in Austin, I can tell you. Are we to where we were the first year of Orlando? Probably not. But you've got to remember that was their third or fourth year of operation."