It would be disrespectful to the players and the coaching staff at Louisville City to call that a comfortable win, but that’s what I, a fan and non-employee of the club, can call it. Yes, Memphis got one back on a broken play toward the end of the first half, but they were otherwise so thoroughly decimated that most of the second half was just fun. 901 had no answer for Bryan Ownby, really, and his pell-mell runs down either flank led to the first two LouCity goals that more or less ended the game before halftime.

Even though Totsch, Lancaster, Alexis, Speedy, Paolo, Bone, and Hoppenot had started the previous two matches within the past eight days and played well over three hours apiece, they were all out on the field in the starting XI when the opening whistle blew. Jona Gomez started at left back, Wes Charpie got another start on the right, Lundt in goal.

Morados got their opener within 15 minutes when Lancaster intercepted a pass near the center circle and quickly fed a waiting Brian Ownby upfield to his right with plenty of space to run. Ownby, with really just one man to beat, drove toward the near post and then deftly squared a pass into the path of Lancaster’s direct run. The Englishman repaid the favor with a sliding one-time finish to the back post.

About ten minutes later, Speedy redirected a long ball played by Memphis up high to Lancaster, who again found Brian Ownby in acres of space on the right. This time, Ownby quickly beat his defender 1v1 going to his left and immediately fired a left-footed curler to the same back post past the 901 keeper again to double the lead.

Memphis got on the board just before the half time whistle blew thanks to a nice effort by Keanu Marsh-Brown, who beat Charpie to hit a ball onto Ben Lundt’s left hand. Lundt pawed the shot away, but was helpless to stop the rebound fired in by Cal Jennings. Gomez had pulled away from Jennings to mark another oncoming runner into the box, and the defense failed to rotate over to cover for him.

The second half started with a flurry of offensive pressure from LouCity that didn’t result in a goal. Memphis had a good chance of their own when Marsh-Brown’s header hit the crossbar in the 49′. Things settled down a bit after that, and both teams made several substitutions starting at the hour mark.

The goal of the match came in the 72′ when Oscar, who came on for JoGo about five minutes earlier, hit a pretty long diagonal pass to Antoine Hoppenot on the left. Hoppenot drove free to the end line and fired a low cross to the waiting Lancaster, but Memphis keeper Jimmy Hague managed to get a hand on it. Fortunately, it wasn’t two hands, and the ball fumbled away from goal near Cam. Lancaster quickly ran over it and back heeled the ball over the prostrate Hague for City’s third goal and Cam’s 50th in purple.

Louisville City’s fourth came late off some nice build-up play on the left flank. Brian Ownby was again involved, this time feeding a pass to Luke Spencer in space on the left, who dribbled toward the near post before squaring the ball to Corben Bone’s late near-post run. Bone fell over face first on his one-time shot, but it was good enough to beat Hague again and round out the scoring.

City dominated this game. Morados had 62% possession, 15 shots, eight on target, 17 chances created, two big chances, had 502 accurate passes and completed 87% of their pass attempts, 207 of which were in Memphis’s half. Memphis managed to convert their only chance of the match, and that needs to be shored up, but otherwise it was a masterful performance with a slightly makeshift lineup for John Hackworth. Lancaster played great, Ownby is rounding into form with the advent of cool weather, Hoppenot continued to play well. It’s all looking good at the moment, folks, and just in time for the playoffs.

City are in the drivers seat to win the Group, something that was difficult to perceive a couple of months ago. Picking up nine points in three chances certainly helps. If Indy XI lose or draw any of their last three games, it’s done and dusted for first place.

Really nice win from the guys and things are trending the way they seem to for LouCity come playoff time, especially under John Hackworth. Vamos!