{"id":752,"date":"2016-09-18T22:07:51","date_gmt":"2016-09-19T02:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsoccer.com\/?p=752"},"modified":"2016-09-18T22:07:51","modified_gmt":"2016-09-19T02:07:51","slug":"fc-cincinnati-claims-third-record-crowd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2016\/09\/18\/fc-cincinnati-claims-third-record-crowd\/","title":{"rendered":"FC Cincinnati Claims Third In Front of Record Crowd"},"content":{"rendered":"

FC Cincinnati<\/strong><\/a> clinched third place\u00a0in USL’s Eastern Conference with a 1-0 victory over Orlando City B<\/strong><\/a> on Saturday night.\u00a0They also broke\u00a0another USL attendance record by packing a\u00a0crowd of 24,376 into\u00a0Nippert Stadium.<\/p>\n

FC Cincinnati Claims Third in the USL Eastern Conference in Front of Record Crowd<\/h2>\n

FC Cincinnati head coach John Harkes<\/strong>\u00a0returned to his\u00a0preferred\u00a04-2-3-1 formation and regular starting lineup after making several changes in the team’s\u00a0midweek draw<\/a> against the Pittsburgh Riverhounds<\/strong>.\u00a0Orlando City B was playing the\u00a0third match of a challenging four-game road trip with eyes on an Eastern Conference playoff berth.<\/p>\n

Orlando City B started the game well\u00a0and took the\u00a0the attack\u00a0to FC Cincinnati, but within\u00a015 minutes the hometown club had\u00a0control of the match, and was creating\u00a0the better\u00a0chances. FC Cincinnati’s Andrew Wiedeman<\/strong> thought he had opened the scoring\u00a0in the 44th minute when he controlled a diagonal entry pass with his chest and buried it near post. The goal was called offside though and the first half ended scoreless. FC Cincinnati\u00a0outshot the Florida club\u00a010-3 in that first stanza and forced 4 saves from Orlando goalkeeper Mark Ridgers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

FC Cincinnati continued their good play into the second half but could not capitalize on the opportunities they created, a problem that has troubled\u00a0the team\u00a0this\u00a0season. In the 65th minute, John Harkes made a positive substitution by\u00a0replacing\u00a0defensive midfielder Kenney Walker<\/strong> with forward Casey Townsend<\/strong>. Townsend recently\u00a0joined the club on September 8th through a late season transfer<\/a> from the Wilmington Hammerheads<\/strong>. Orlando City B had good passages of play as well and nearly found a goal through Lewis Neal in the 71st minute but his open shot from point blank range went just wide.<\/p>\n

The match was decided in the 81st when\u00a0FC Cincinnati’s\u00a0Eric Stevenson<\/strong> crossed a ball into the box for substitute Townsend who had sandwiched himself between two Orlando City B defenders. He leaped and\u00a0flicked\u00a0a header that found its way past Ridgers and into the bottom left corner of the goal.<\/p>\n

One\u00a0goal was all that FC Cincinnati needed to secure the three points and clinch third place in the Eastern Conference with one game remaining. Despite\u00a0the result, Orlando City B still\u00a0holds eighth place\u00a0in the Eastern Conference but have not yet clinched a playoff spot. They are battling with\u00a0the Wilmington Hammerheads who are only one point behind with a single game remaining.<\/p>\n

FC Cincinnati has put together a phenomenal first season from an attendance perspective. This is the third time they have broken the USL single game attendance record in 2016. They also broke the record on April 16th against\u00a0Louisville City (20,497) and on May 14th against\u00a0Pittsburgh (23,375). This win guarantees them a home playoff game and there is a strong possibility the\u00a0record will fall again at that postseason match on October 2nd.<\/p>\n

FC Cincinnati faces Pittsburgh away next Saturday in a match that will present an opportunity to rest key players before the playoffs. Orlando City B heads to Pennsylvania for a Sunday matchup with the\u00a0Bethlehem Steel,\u00a0<\/strong>when\u00a0they will get one more chance\u00a0to book their ticket to the postseason.<\/p>\n

Photo credit: FC Cincinnati<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FC Cincinnati clinched third place\u00a0in USL’s Eastern Conference with a 1-0 victory over Orlando City B on Saturday night.\u00a0They also broke\u00a0another USL attendance record by packing a\u00a0crowd of 24,376 into\u00a0Nippert Stadium. FC Cincinnati Claims Third in the USL Eastern Conference in Front of Record Crowd FC Cincinnati head coach John Harkes\u00a0returned to his\u00a0preferred\u00a04-2-3-1 formation and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1653,"featured_media":771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,26],"tags":[190,232,326,113,192,327,325,61],"class_list":["post-752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-usl","tag-andrew-wiedeman","tag-casey-townsend","tag-eric-stevenson","tag-fc-cincinnati","tag-john-harkes","tag-mark-ridgers","tag-orlando-city-b","tag-usl"],"modified_by":"John Bava","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1653"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}