A pair of early goals put Louisville City up 2-0 during a 4-1 win over Charleston Battery Saturday night at Slugger Field.
The win pushed Louisville City from eighth in the USL Championship Eastern Conference to fifth with 21 points.
“It’s great to get three points, especially against an opponent like Charleston,” Louisville City coach John Hackworth said. “They’re a really tough opponent. I think they’re a team that’s going to be there at the end of the year. Especially here at home, and where we were relative to them in the table, to get a little separation from them and try to build on a good performance on Wednesday was good.”
Louisville City’s scoring started with a goal by George Davis IV just 2:53 into the match. It was a game changer.
“When you get an early goal like that, they have to chase and they have to open up,” LouCity’s Magnus Rasmussen said. “Charleston, they like to sit even counter on most teams and they’re really hard to play against, but when we’re up 1-0, they have to open up and see if they can cheat a little bit. I think it was really important for us to get the first goal. It was a really good first post run by Lucky [Mkosana] and then George [Davis IV], he just finished it perfectly.”
Then, in the 19′ a run into the box by Lucky Mkosana resulted in a red card on Kierron Mason of Charleston Battery. Mason grabbed Mkosana’s jersey to prevent him from scoring a goal, resulting in the card.
LouCity’s Magnus Rasmussen was the designated penalty kick shooter and he buried his shot in the top right corner with his left foot to put Louisville City ahead 2-0.
Now playing up a man, Louisville City searched for a third goal, but it didn’t come in the first half. In the second half, Charleston Battery got a goal from Arthur Bosua on a header from a corner kick to cut LouCity’s lead to 2-1 in the 49′.
“I don’t think we played our best but that’s a weird game,” Hackworth said. “… I thought we played some really good soccer at moments and we didn’t play smart, intelligent soccer, when we were up a man and had opportunities to put the game out of reach. Obviously, coming out of halftime, giving a free kick goal on a defensive corner, that’s unacceptable. We really felt like we should have been up by two at that point and we could really control the game. We had to fight to get the third, glad that we did that. Nice to get a fourth, but it was a strange one.”
In the 74′ minute a corner kick from Oscar Jimenez was crushed by Rasmussen toward the goal. It bounced off a Charleston defender on its way into the goal.
Louisville City got its fourth goal in the 87′ on a beauty of a free kick from Niall McCabe from just outside the box. The final 20 minutes of the match was wild and included three yellow cards and a pair of red cards, sending LouCity players Brian Ownby and Paco Craig off. The match ended with Louisville City playing with just nine players, despite winning 4-1.
Scoring Summary:
3′ – LOU George Davis IV, 1-0
21′ – LOU Magnus Rasmussen, 2-0
50′ – CHS Arthur Bosua, 2-1
73′ – LOU Magnus Rasmussen/ CHS Own Goal, 3-1
87′ – LOU Niall McCabe, 4-1
