MINNEAPOLIS — Minneapolis City SC’s USL League Two playoff run came to a close after a 2-1 defeat against Flint City Bucks in the Central Conference Championship.
The match marked a bittersweet end to a special season for the Crows. In their first postseason appearance since joining League Two, Minneapolis showed they weren’t just happy to be there, following up their heroic penalty shootout victory over Peoria City in the opening round with a convincing 2-0 win over Sueno FC.
A win against Flint would have added a second piece of silverware to the Crows’ 2025 season, pairing the Heartland Division crown with a Central Conference championship.
As they had in both of their previous League Two playoff matches, Minneapolis began the game with a burst of activity. In the fourth minute, Shea Bechtel placed a shot from the top of the box behind Flint goalkeeper Jakub Grzesiak and onto the far post. The rebound reached Andrew Heckenlaible, who was only stopped from opening the scoring for City by a diving challenge from Flint’s Sekou Agard.
However, the Crows wouldn’t be denied their own rebound twice. After receiving the ball and dribbling toward the endline, Heckenlaible got the cross in just before running out of room. The ball first found the head of Preston Kipnusu, but his effort was snuffed out before it could threaten Grzesiak. It fell, though, to Morgan Olson, who cut the grass between himself and the far post to give Minneapolis a 1-0 lead in the sixth minute.
For the next quarter of an hour, the Crows kept the pressure high on the Bucks, denying them any sustained possession and providing a consistent threat from direct attacks. Then, Flint finally showed signs of life in a sequence eerily reminiscent of Minneapolis’ own start to the match.
In the 24th minute, Flint’s Dominic Ayella cracked the crossbar with an effort from the 18-yard line. Fellow forward Donavan Phillip followed that up by blasting a close-range effort into the side netting.
Then, like the Crows, the Bucks turned pressure into points on the board in the 27th minute. Two Flint headers quickly turned a Minneapolis goal kick into a one-on-one opportunity for Phillip. The League Two regular-season scoring leader wouldn’t miss this chance to add another to his season tally, threading the needle between Jared Hecht and Daniel Sessler to level the score at 1-1.
Flint found a golden chance to double their lead shortly before the halftime whistle. A foul by Hecht just inside the city box gave Phillip a trip to the penalty spot.
Fans of Flint may have thought they knew how this would go. The division’s leading scorer has the ball 12 yards from the goal with only one man standing in his way. So he scores, right?
Wrong. City fans have seen this movie before, too. Daniel Sessler faces penalties. Daniel Sessler saves penalties. In the 42nd minute, Sessler repeated his heroics from the first-round shootout against Peoria, diving the right way to keep Phillip’s effort out of his net and send it out for a corner.
Phillip nearly negated Sessler’s save from the ensuing corner. The Flint forward leapt from, again, the penalty spot to find a free header. However, his attempt at atonement glanced off the post and again found the arms of Sessler, who, along with the ball, secured the 1-1 scoreline heading into halftime.
The opening to the second half proved far less eventful than the first. Momentum shifted between both sides, but never to the extent it had in the first half, where there was so much pressure the ball had nowhere left to go but the back of the net. Both teams made substitutions, but none of them would be the player who ultimately decided the match.
It remained anyone’s game until the 84th minute. Flint’s player of the match, as well as the season, Donavan Phillip, provided the goal that clinched both the result and the Central Conference trophy for the Bucks.
In a strange twist of fate, Citizens watching from outside the Interbay Stadium in Seattle, whether it be from home or the Corner Bar, wouldn’t see the goal that ended the Crows’ remarkable season. The livestream of the game went down in the 84th minute. When it returned in the 86th, the goal had been scored, and Minneapolis weren’t able to find a response in the few minutes that remained.
Perhaps not having to see the heartbreaking goal that ended the Crows’ season will leave all the positive memories from this summer, including winning the Heartland Division, Kipnusu’s SportsCenter Top 10 bicycle-kick goal and Sessler’s penalty heroics, unspoiled.
While the League Two playoffs may be over, there is still a trophy on the table for the Crows in 2025. With the senior team still on the road, Minneapolis City 2 will take on Duluth FC in the Minnesota Super Cup Final at 7 p.m. on Saturday at Macalester Stadium in St. Paul.
