FC Wichita season ends with playoff loss at Myrtle Beach
It wasn’t expected, and it certainly wasn’t easy to swallow. After much of its own undoing, FC Wichita was eliminated from the NPSL South Region playoffs with a 3-1 loss to Myrtle Beach FC on Saturday night in Myrtle Beach, S.C.
“We believed that we could come here and take a win away, and we certainly played well enough to at times,” FC Wichita coach Larry Inlow said by phone after the game. “But silly mistakes cost us.”
Myrtle Beach got on the board first with a goal from forward Jon Ander in the 11th minute after a mistake by Wichita’s back line. That blunder left Ander free one-on-one with goalkeeper Mauricio Vargas.
After Shadow Sebele tied it in the 16th minute, Myrtle Beach struck right back. The back four of FC Wichita failed to clear the ball, and eventually it ended up at the feet of Ander, who put it away with ease again. He finished with a hat trick after he rocketed a curving shot from 20 yards out in the 58th minute.
“The first two goals we gave away were of our own doing,” Inlow said. “It wasn’t anything that they earned.… Nobody is perfect, and I would certainly never hang any one player out to dry. This is a team. We win together, and we lose together.”
Myrtle Beach was up two goals with 30 minutes left in the game, and Inlow and FC Wichita watched the time on their season dwindle away. Myrtle Beach packed eight men in an already compressed attacking-third to close out the rest of the game.
“The width of (the field) was about the minimum that the league would allow,” a frustrated Inlow said of the turf field, which was marked with lines for four sports. “You just back in with eight guys on a small pitch like that, there’s just not a lot of room to expose teams that sit.”
For the first time all season, FC Wichita had no visible attack. The South Central Conference champion was shutdown in the second half. Despite that, and the disappointment that followed, FC Wichita had accomplished plenty its first year of existence.
“We got to see exactly what the competition was both in our conference and outside of our conference, and that’s a big deal,” Inlow said. “Having experience, plays a big part in building confidence when you go and play on the road.
“We built a program now that is nationally known, so recruiting is going to be a little bit easier, a little bit widespread.”
Inlow hopes, with the team’s early success, FC Wichita’s popularity will continue to grow.
“The vision that the owners … had for the team, it was brought to fruition,” Inlow said. “We built something in Wichita that has a solid foundation, and I think it’s going to move forward with a lot of support from the fans, and a lot of support from the city.”
This story was originally published July 18, 2015 at 11:09 PM with the headline "FC Wichita season ends with playoff loss at Myrtle Beach."