Still Searching for Our Best Attack
MD11 — Westchester SC vs Fort Wayne FC — 2026
Match Recap & Analysis
Fort Wayne FC falls behind to a first-half bicycle kick in Mount Vernon, reshapes its attack at the hour mark, and Taig Healy answers off a corner to push the unbeaten league run to eight matches.
Westchester SC 1 – 1 Fort Wayne FC · USL League One 🏟 The Stadium at Memorial Field, Mount Vernon, NY 📅 Wednesday, June 10, 2026 ⚽ Conor McGlynn (28’), Taig Healy (74’) 📋 FWFC Record: 4-5-2 · 17 pts · Matchday 11
The Match
Fort Wayne Football Club opened the first rematch of its professional era on the front foot, controlling the ball through the opening quarter hour without turning territory into chances. Westchester SC absorbed the pressure and grew into the half, and in the 28th min the hosts struck in spectacular fashion. Maximus Jennings centered a ball into the box and Westchester captain Conor McGlynn met it with a bicycle kick from 15 yards, the finish caroming off the right post and beyond Bernd Schipmann. Westchester carried the lead and the better chances to the interval.
Mike Avery moved first after the break, sending on Kabiru Gafar for Ryan Becher just past the hour and reorganizing the attack around the change: Lilian Ricol settled at the point of the attack full-time, Gafar took the right flank, and Clarence Awoudor shifted left. The reshaped side needed roughly ten minutes to find its moment. Emerson Nieto launched a long diagonal to Gafar, who settled it, beat his man, and won a corner. Michael Rempel delivered, the ball broke loose in a crowded box, and Taig Healy drove a low, left-footed finish through traffic in the 74th min for his sixth league goal of the season.
Jayden Smith, Jack Thomas, and Daniel Oyetunde all entered in the closing minutes as Fort Wayne FC saw out a 1-1 draw that extends its unbeaten run in USL League One play to eight matches.
The Defender’s Verdict
A draw on the road holds its value over a full season, and we will take this one without complaint. The streak lives, and Westchester needed a genuine wonder strike to take a lead. McGlynn’s bicycle kick deserves Goal of the Week. Sometimes the other side does something special, and you give it a clap, and get back to it.
Eleven matches in, and we’re starting to have a good set of data, including the eye test. Ryan Becher is a proven scorer at this level, but we’re still looking for his best position in this lineup. Our press demands legs at every line and Ricol is simply a better fit at the point of the attack. When both of them shared the pitch on Wednesday they kept wanting the same patch of grass. In over an hour of work, Becher managed zero shots and zero created chances. For me, he’s our 12th man, a super sub, where he can be deployed as another attacker against tired center backs. That is a role with real value, and right now it fits him better than any spot in the starting eleven. The squad produced in a 4-2-3-1 while he was injured, and we run the risk of regressing if we experiment with the formation.
The rest of the attack has a semblance of clarity. Healy is locked in at the #10, a creator who scores, and the more he finds the ball, the better we look. Gafar created more in his half hour than the rest of the attack managed all night, and for me, he has earned the right wing. Ricol continues to lead the line, and while his form has taken a slight dip recently, I would suspect he gets back to usual success with the right players around him. We’ve missed Javier Armas, who opens up the game and makes everyone else around him better. Wednesday was one of our thinnest creative nights of the season, and we’ll surely improve on this the moment he’s back in our starting XI. Our attack runs through the trinity of Ricol, Healy, and Armas, and when one of the three is missing we stop looking dangerous. If the club were to make one mid-season move, I’m leaning towards a proven USL wide attacker on the left side. I’ve seen enough from Gafar that I think we’ve found our man on the right. The left side is still up for grabs, and Awoudor isn’t it. He’s more of a like-for-like to sub for Healy, and that position should be competitive with Jack Thomas. We happen to have three number 10s on this team.
The defense has carried this streak, and it mostly carried Wednesday. By expected goals, or xG, the stat that weighs the quality of chances rather than just counting shots, Westchester generated roughly three times our danger, and they have now out-created us in both meetings while taking a single point from the pair. Some of that is Schipmann, who is playing like the keeper Forward Madison supporters remember. Some of it is Tiago Dias and Rempel growing into genuine League One defenders in front of him. And some of it is the kind of luck every streak quietly needs. May the soccer gods continue to look down on us in favor.
Always FWD