MINNEAPOLIS — Perspectives on Minneapolis City SC’s season-opening, three-all draw are multiple. As to what it portends for the 2025 season for the Crows, hindsight will be needed to ultimately place it in proper context.
In four prior meetings, dating back to 2023, the Crows had lost each encounter with RKC Third Coast by a two-goal margin. Also, the Seagulls are the consensus preseason-favorite to win the reconstituted Heartland Division. City, having played to a 3-3 draw at Edor Nelson Field, earned its first-ever point off of RKC. Basic math establishes that this is improvement.
At halftime, the Crows were down 2-0 at home after conceding near-immediately in the second minute, and once again moments before the break in the 45th minute. Shaking off what can be extra-demoralizing goals given their timing, City fought back to earn a draw in the second half. This is a moral victory and something on which to build.
Holding a one-goal lead in the 80th minute, and with a man advantage at home, but giving up an equalizer so late, made the resulting tie feel like two points lost as opposed to one gained.
The challenge of pulling a team together for the first game or two of the League Two season is one that confronts every team. A majority of players are arriving in from their various colleges, and doing so staggered across a couple weeks. Justin Oliver and Tudor Flintham have only a few training sessions to try and establish a functional level of cohesion before their charges take the field in a competitive match. But this is no different than with what the Seagulls’ Gabriel Hall and Hayden Howard are tasked. Nor any other League Two coaching staff.
“We had four people that started, today, that had only been in one training session,” said Oliver. “And that was a pregame training session on Thursday.
“I think, today, you got to see good moments. Some bad moments. Some where I wish we could have ironed out some details and wrinkles, to be a little more on the same page. But all in all, a fine opening game.”
“The message I was giving the guys [at halftime],” said centerback Nick Kent, “was, ‘We’ve got to make sure we’re defending, still.’ We can’t just think that goals are coming. We’ve still got to defend. We’ve still got to worry about the next five minutes. But also, don’t drop back too much, you know. Keep the pressure on them.”
If you are a Crows fan — which is overwhelmingly-likely if you are reading this — then the hope is Sunday’s defensive lapses are easily ironed out on the practice field. Also, that the pending arrival of returning Crows Joe Highfield, Morgan Olson, Mizael Harris, Mitch Munzig, and Curtis Wagner — along with a number of new faces — bolsters a squad that just went toe-to-toe with one of the division’s best clubs.
The Details
2′ | 0-1: Edor Nelson’s east goal gets a lot of sun, beamed in from an acute angle, on most summer evenings. That light got the better of Crows keeper Nolan Meyer on a cross, which was spilled, and then backheeled in by Seagulls’ centerback John Wandschneider. The former First-Team All-State keeper from Andover, and redshirt-sophomore netminder at UW-Milwaukee, largely shook off the error and kept his composure over the remaining 88-plus minutes.
45′ | 0-2: A Crows turnover deep in their own defensive third saw RKC score in the dying moments of the first half. It allowed Bienvenu Djunga to welcome his teammate, Jaden Prado, onto the scoresheet. Djunga received the ball at the top of the penalty area, then tucked a pass in to Prado who had slipped in between City’s back line via a nice diagonal run. The pair looked dangerous all evening and proved so in combination.
“We kind of came in at halftime, and we said, ‘Alright, look, this game is going to be entirely different. So, the first half is borderline irrelevant, now, because we’re up a man,'” Oliver said. “We got to see a slight bit of how they were to look to defend [against] us, with that happening. So we made some very attacking minded subs, getting some more pace, size, athleticism up top. And some pure one-v-one dribblers out wide. And we just kind of talked about finding two-v-ones around the edges, or one-v-ones once delivering balls. And then when we could, to put balls behind the back line.”
Jared Hecht replaced Ondieki Maina as Minneapolis put a second forward up top. And Andrew Heckenlaible replaced Bernard Assibey-Rhule out wide. That Heckenlaible would go on to make an encouraging 45-minute debut for City was notable; the St. Lou U man had flown into Des Moines and driven over three-and-a-half hours, arriving shortly before warmups on Sunday. One could be forgiven for wondering what the winger is capable of with his legs fully underneath him.
46′ | 1-2: Defender Jonah Garcia lofted a long ball from midfield in the direction of forward Preston Kipnusu. The 6-foot-4 Drake freshman got a touch to the ball, which he shielded from Seagulls keeper Nicholas Diana. Diana in turn bodied Kipnusu, ceding a penalty. Kipnusu’s collegiate teammate, attacking midfielder Jackson Kirsch, slotted his penalty straight down the middle to get the Crows on the scoreboard.
50′ | 2-2: Kipnusu swung a cross in for Hecht which was cut out for a corner. Holding midfielder Joey Tawah curled an in-swinger onto Kipnusu’s head, which the latter drove down and into the back of the net.
“We did work [in practice] at like just driving at them [on corners],” Kipnusu noted. “And we knew that they were going to play like a zone. So we played it into that area, and it was actually a really good ball. And you’ve just got to attack it, and that’s what happened.”
74′ | 3-2: Centerback Nick Kent headed a ball clear of City’s defensive third, upfield for Hecht. The big forward made one deft touch to control the ball, and a second on the turn to play Kipnusu in on goal. For the second time on the evening, Diana took Kipnusu to ground and Kipnusu’s first touch took the ball around Diana. The keeper would earn a caution and again send City to the spot. Kirsch opted to snap a shot low and to the keeper’s right. Diana got a piece of the ball, but not enough to prevent the Crows from taking the lead.
80′ | 3-3: RKC worked the ball from one flank to the other, setting up a give-and-go between Nicholas Pendleton and Brett Perkins. The combination put Pendleton through a channel and the winger scored, near corner, to level the contest.
As an aside, Hecht looks to be an interesting player for the Crows this summer, in part because of the flexibility he offers. Fans may be familiar with the Gustavus graduate, having faced City as a member of the St. Croix Legends for the past two seasons, and has experience both as a centerback and forward.
Bringing Hecht on and leaving him up top, it was evident Oliver wanted to avoid sitting too deep with a man advantage. But ahead of the Seagulls’ third goal, that instinct took hold among a Crows side still building familiarity with one another. Given a bit of space inside the attacking third, RKC was able to salvage a point from a game it left having a number of its own errors to correct.
The Man Who Played an Entire Game in One Half Hour
Wandschneider, while blessed with a lengthy surname, did not spend a long time on the pitch in Minneapolis. Things began fortuitously as he opened scoring with an opportunistic poach seconds into the evening. The centerback would go on to have his hands full, tasked with marking the Man of the Match, Kipnusu.
One could admire the defender’s fearlessness, at minimum. After receiving a caution in the ninth minute for a professional foul on the striker, the Marquette freshman persisted in committing a further pair of fouls on Kipnusu, receiving subsequent warnings from the referee. Either might have gotten Wandschenider sent off. But only one kind of caution lay ahead, as neither Wandschneider nor Kipnusu were done with their entanglement just yet.
“Just gotta keep going,” Kipnusu said. “I know that guy’s gonna constantly beat at me, beat at me… Just do what I do. Control the controllables. And just keep attacking that player — especially when I knew he was on a yellow. I knew that if he’s on a yellow and he keeps fouling me, he’s gonna eventually get another yellow and get a red.”
That second yellow and red would come in just the 34th minute.
“And I don’t know what that guy was thinking when he kicked out at me, but he got a red,” Kipnusu noted. “[I] just gotta keep fighting at ’em.”
Kipnusu, for his part, won a pair of penalties for the Crows, and finished the day with two assists and a goal across 87 minutes. But it’s arguable whether anyone had as big an impact on the game as did Wandschneider on a per-minute basis.
Bulldogs Lead the Way
The aforementioned Kipnusu had a memorable debut. As too did Kirsch, who became the first Crow to score a brace on his debut.
“I’m super happy,” said Kirsch about scoring a pair of goals. “Got a bit lucky, Preston winning those pens for me. But, happy to contribute to the point. Although… we could have got three. But, [I’m] just happy to contribute.”
Joining his Drake teammates in the starting XI was sophomore defender Cole Schrage, who played the full 90 and looked more than up for the challenge of the League Two campaign.
That the trio chose to spend their summer as roommates in Woodbury and playing for the Crows is in part fruit borne from the appointment of new sporting director Casey Holm. The latter, in working with Oliver and Flintham to build a roster, hope an increased focus on cohesion between recruitment, system and style can see City qualify for the League Two postseason for the first time.
In terms of recruiting, the atmosphere at Edor Nelson doesn’t hurt, either.
“It’s insane,” Kipnusu said. “It’s one of the reasons I came here. [Also] the staff, the team — just amazing. I’ve loved it. Obviously disappointed because we couldn’t get the three points, today, but we’ll just move on and to the next one.”
