Oscar Jimenez noticed something about his Louisville City FC teammates toward the end of a wacky, 4-4 draw Saturday against the Charleston Battery.
With every opportunity, LouCity players sprinted at the ball. They thrived on 50-50 opportunities. The Battery appeared “gassed.”
“So I was like, ‘Let’s go,’” Jimenez said. “We were ready for it.”
LouCity trailed by two goals at three junctures in the game but came away with a point on the road against a Charleston team that’s atop the USL Eastern Conference table. The club will carry that momentum into a return home as, after a month on the road, LouCity hosts the Charlotte Independence at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday inside Slugger Field.
Players have their fitness to thank.
“Yes, obviously the guys work exceptionally hard,” said coach James O’Connor. “There’s a fight that we showed — a willingness to not accept the way the game was going. It was brilliant. It really was. The drive that we showed to keep going — we really could’ve nicked one in at the end.”
Jimenez started the scoring in stoppage time before the halftime whistle. LouCity then poured in three goals in the second half, including a pair just three minutes apart to equalize.
The performance goes back to a two-week preseason spent at IMG Academy in Florida. Whereas other clubs play games, LouCity focused on conditioning. It carries over to training sessions, when O’Connor continues to push his players.
“We’ve been working so hard that our fitness is never going to be an issue,” said George Davis IV, who served as captain Saturday. “It’s good in games like this, because it really pays off.”
LouCity played the Battery on just three days’ rest. They’ll have four going into the home matchup with Charlotte, which sits on the bottom half of the table. But the Independence, who play Sunday against the Tampa Bay Rowdies, have won three of their last four after a slow start to 2017.
“Yeah, I mean preseason is part of it, but it’s also the way our attitude is during the training sessions,” Jimenez said. “Anytime we train we’re going all out like it’s a game. It’s credit to everyone. “
The Battery went into Saturday with seven wins in 11 games, but LouCity dominated the stat sheet, claiming 59.3 percent of possession. Charleston was limited to six shots. The boys in white and gold tried 19 of them.
And, yes, shots finally went in after a run of games against professional competition that saw LouCity bag just one goal in more than 270 minutes.
“We’ve got tremendous belief in the players,” O’Connor said. “I think people will look and say, ‘Oh, you haven’t scored goals,’ and all the rest of it. I think we’ve got players who are very capable of scoring. The most pleasing aspect tonight was just the character of the guys — having that never say die attitude.”
