A penalty kick in the 90′ by Sean Totsch sent Louisville City FC into the 4th Round of the U.S. Open Cup Wednesday night. The Boys in Purple defeated Birmingham Legion 1-0 in a battle of USL Championship squads.
Louisville City will find out which MLS team they will play (and where) at 11 a.m. Thursday in the U.S. Open Cup 4th Round Draw, which will be live tweeted by @OpenCup and U.S. Soccer.
Totsch’s game winner came about when super-sub Brian Ownby made a run to the box and was undercut by Birmingham goalkeeper Matt VanOekel, resulting in a Yellow Card for Van Oekel.
Knowing that coach John Hackworth had tabbed him to take the Penalty Kicks in this match, Totsch stepped up to the line and buried it into the back of the net.
“I have the confidence,” Totsch said. “You go up there and not much changes. The ball is stopped at the same distance every time. They were saying some things to me there. They tried like putting the ball and messing with me. It’s kind of funny when they start messing with you, it turns from being a little nervous to being angry at them. I was like, ‘alright I got to get them back now.’ I knew I was like, ‘alright I got to get this guy back from trying to mess with me before my (penalty kick).’”
Hackworth said he knew Totsch would make the kick.
“We always take PK’s at times leading up to matches like this and we always chart every single one that’s made and Sean is really good at them, he makes the majority so out of those guys that started tonight we always say hey if we get a PK – and look we haven’t gotten one all year so this is kind of interesting – you are taking it.”
Hackworth joked that Totsch nearly lost that role in practice yesterday.
“Ironically, I turned around in practice yesterday and I see Totsch taking a PK and he misses,” Hackworth explained. “And I say, ‘OK, you’re out that’s it’ and he came running over ‘No No No, I was trying to hit a flag in the corner’ so I said “OK, fair enough” and it was a little joke, and then at the end there when we were congratulating each other he says, ‘I made it’ and I said yeah I had total faith in you never lost it.”
Louisville City ran out the remaining minutes of extra time and carried away the 1-0 victory in the rubber match between these two foes. Birmingham Legion won 3-2 in the first meeting at Slugger Field. Louisville City won the second meeting 3-0, this time in Birmingham.
