2026 US Open Cup Round 2: 9-man One Knoxville survives Asheville City in PK shootout

One Knoxville were down two men for nearly 70 minutes of 120-plus minutes of soccer Tuesday night in Asheville, N.C.

Still, the USL League One side survived a penalty shootout, with goalkeeper Jonathan Burke making three saves, to seal a victory and advance to the Third Round of the 2026 US Open Cup. There, One Knox will face a Major League Soccer team for the first time in club history.

“The one thing I’m very happy about is our fight,” said One Knoxville skipper Ian Fuller. “Two men down for nearly seventy minutes and they still fought like heck so I’m really proud of that.”

Asheville City SC thought they had the opening goal in the first quarter of an hour but it was called off due to offsides. Moments later, the USL League Two side thought a penalty call would go their way only to be waved off by the center official. 

Despite the attack from Asheville, One Knoxville opened the scoring through Braudilio Rodrigues in the 33rd minute. 

Knoxville would go into the half with a comfortable 1-0 lead.

Enter chaos.

Within the first five minutes of the second half, Knoxville nearly had their second only to have Asheville’s Panneberg make the initial save before Ryan Holmes cleared the ball off the line. 

Seconds later, Knoxville’s Stavros Zarokostas received a second yellow following a scuffle on the sidelines. 

In the 61st minute, Burke kept Asheville off the board thanks to a magnificent double save. He would end up recording a dozen saves on the night. But his work was far from over.

Less than six minutes later, Knoxville would concede a penalty and Simon Carlson sneaked one past Burke to level the score.

Enter more chaos.

Just before the 90 minutes were up, Knoxville’s Teddy Baker received a second yellow and the USL League One side would be down to 9 men for what would eventually be an extra half hour. 

“I’m not going to lie, we don’t train for that type of situation,” Fuller said. “It’s a test of character for one. And we want to defend from inside out and the most important thing is defending the goal. The guys did a tremendous job of that.” 

Asheville were the stronger side in added extra time, creating multiple chances, but still no one could find a winning goal. Even before the penalty shootout chaos, more chaos was added in the 121st minute when Asheville’s Johnny Fenwick received a straight red for denying a clear and obvious goal scoring opportunity.

And then the penalty shootout happened.

Both sides saw their first attempt saved before scoring the next two. In the fourth round of the shootout, Burke would save Asheville’s penalty attempt and after converting their fourth penalty, Knoxville was on the verge of advancing.

For a third time, Burke delivered.

“It’s a blast,” Burke said following the match. “At the end of the day, it’s all fun. You have to enjoy it. You can’t overthink it too much.”

Burke became just the 15th keeper in the 168 shootouts of the US Open Cup to have 3 penalty saves in a shootout. 

Both Zarokostas and Baker will miss the next round of the Open Cup due to their red cards but in the sports world, it’s always next man up.

“I expect all of our players to play,” Fuller said. “That’s why they’re here at this club. And they showed that tonight. They know that we believe in them.”

This now makes back-to-back years One Knoxville SC has advanced to the third round of the tournament. They lost last year to USL Championship side Colorado Springs Switchbacks in added extra time.