After playing the El Paso Patriots to a 1-1 draw, the Richmond Kickers captured the 1995 U.S. Open Cup title by defeating the Patriots on penalty kicks 4-2. Photo courtesy of the Richmond Kickers

In 1995, the U.S. Open Cup ended one era, and began another. Since 1967, the teams from the top professional leagues had declined to enter the Open Cup, the NASL at first, followed by the APSL in the 80’s and 90’s. This left the Dewar Cup to be contested solely by the top semi-pro and amateur teams in the nation.  Only a very few USISL teams got involved in the Open Cup, and the APSL actually created their own “Professional Cup” for a single season in 1992. However, with Major League Soccer looming on the horizon, it was time the pro teams got into the act, and the APSL and USISL teams finally joined the party.

The 1995 tournament was seen as a chance for two sets of teams to prove themselves. The USASA clubs were looking to defend “their“ cup against the higher level clubs, and the USISL teams were looking to prove that they were on the same level as the APSL clubs.

All 16 teams started off in the opening round, 4 teams from the USASA, 8 clubs from the USASA (7 from the Pro league and Richmond from the amateur Premier League), and the 4 U.S.-based APSL clubs.  For the most part, the USASA teams were overmatched, losing their matches by a combined score of 19-5. The lone close game was the Chciago Stingers 2-1 victory over the USASA’s AAC Eagles, also from Chicago . All four APSL clubs advanced with relative ease, with Seattle registering the biggest victory, a  9-2 win over the Everett BigFoot.

This set up a quarterfinal bracket split right down the middle, four USISL clubs and four APSL clubs. Three matches kicked off on July 12, and the results were not kind at all for the APSL. In Richmond , the amateur Kickers, whose lineup featured five players who would eventually play in Major League Soccer, took on the APSL’s Atlanta Ruckus. Atlanta ’s lineup included national team regulars John Doyle and Bruce Murray, and were managed by former U.S. National Team head coach Lothar Osiander. Osiander had previously won the U.S. Open cup as a player/coach with San Francisco Greek-Americans in 1985. Kickers mainstay Rob Ukrop opened the scoring in the 13^th minute off a pass from Ben Crawley, and the home side took the lead into the half. Atlanta came out for the second half with a much more physical style of play, which resulted in Ukrop leaving the game in the 47^th minute after an elbow from John Doyle broke his cheekbone. Doyle then dealt a blow to Richmond on the scoreboard, drawing the game level four minutes later. Richmond wasted no time taking the lead back, as Crawley once again aided in the goal, this time feeding Scott Snyder for a simple tap in at the 57^th minute.  This time it  was Richmond ’s turn to play tough defense, and after a flurry of yellow cards and six minutes of stoppage time, the Kickers pulled off the first big upset of the ’95 Cup.

A different story unfolded in Chicago , with the same result however. The New York Centaurs dominated their match against the Stingers, but it was the David Linn’s free kick header in the 89^th minute that pushed the USISL side to a 1-0 upset. The El Paso Patriots completed the USISL sweep on the night, getting two goals from Sal Mercado in the 71^st and 77^th minutes to top the Colorado Foxes 2-0. All of this left the Seattle Sounders with a final chance to maintain the APSL’s honor, and they did so in fine fashion with a 5-0 thrashing of the Chico Rooks.

The first semifinal was on July 30 between Seattle and El Paso , and a bit of gamesmanship was displayed by the hosts. The Patriots decided to start the game in the middle of the day under the blazing 103 degree El Paso sun. Normal conditions for the home players, but a big climate change for the Sounders, who were used to the cooler and wetter Northwest. The only goal El Paso needed came in the 17^th minute, when Gambino Amparan headed home a Lorenzo Baeza pass, past a charging Marcus Hahnemann. After the loss, Sounders manager Alan Hinton refused to use the weather conditions as an excuse. "We are not going to use the heat as an excuse. I put together the best lineup I had available to me and sometimes these results happen in the game of soccer." Hinton said after the match. This ensured that the 1995 U.S. Open Cup final would be an all-USISL affair.

To determine the Patriots’ opponents, the Kickers and Stringers met in Richmodn a week later. Before the clock could hit 1:00, Richmond had taken the lead, as Brian Kamler took a clever back heel pass from Scott Snyder and put the ball home. Chicago tied the game ten minutes later when Don D’Ambria capitalized off a mistake by defender Mike Clark.

Steve Morris gave Chicago a  2-1 lead to take into halftime, scoring from the penalty spot seven minutes from the break. Chicago was awarded the spot kick when David Richardson was shoved to the ground by Kevin Scott.

Early in the second half, play was delayed for five minutes by a skirmish that involved nearly every player on the field. In the end, Chicago ’s Matt Knowles was sent off for throwing a punch at Ben Crawley, and the Stingers Art Wywrot and Richmond ’s Mike Clark were shown yellow cards. Richmond took advantage of being a man up, and score two goals within five minutes of each other. Ben Crawley tallied in the 64^th minute, and Scott Snyder flowed with a goal of his own five minutes later. Just as it appeared Richmond had the game in hand, Chicago ’s Don D’Ambria came through for his second goal of the game, leveling the score at 3-3 with only stoppage time remaining. Rob Ukrop, on as a sub and seeing his first action since suffering the broken cheekbone versus Atlanta , gave Richmond the chance to avoid extra time. Ukrop took a deep pass and was tripped up in the penalty area by John Howard. Ben Crawley stepped up to the spot and calmly drove home the goal that would send Richmond to the final. “I wanted to take it,” Crawley said. “didn’t see anybody else rushing to it, so I just took it.”

On August 27 at Socorro Stadium, in front of a TV audience on PRIME network, the Patriots and Kickers faced off for the Dewar Cup. Richmond had won the USISL Premier League championship a few weeks earlier, so they had a “double” in their sights. Richmond had the majority of the chances in the first half, including Ben Crawley hitting the crossbar just before halftime.  Richmond continued their momentum from the first half, as Rob Ukrop put the Kickers on the board. Leigh Cowlishaw came down the sideline, and centered the ball to Ukrop inside the six yard box, who brought the ball down and put it in past Patriots goalkeeper Jake Arambide and a defender. Just a minute later Richmond lost the momentum that had built, when Kevin Scott was sent off for a dangerous tackle. Now up a man, El Paso came to life, and saw two corner kicks cleared off the line by Kickers defenders. With just eight minutes left, El Paso finally broke through, when Gambino Amparan scored from just outside the penalty area off a pass from Sal Mercado. In a case of deja-vu, the Patriots were reduced to ten men right after their goal, when Hector Cervantes saw a red card from took down Ukrop on a breakaway.

Both teams had a handful of chances on extra time, but near the end, it looked as if Richmond were content to head towards penalty kicks and rely on goalkeeper Jeff Causey to win it for them. Causey did just that, stopping the Patriots second and fourth penalty attempts, leaving Michael Bradley to win it on Richmond ’s fourth kick. Bradley did just that, shooting the ball in the lower right corner to beat Arambide and giving the Kickers the “double.”

With the 1995 Cup concluded, and the USISL proving their worth versus the APSL clubs, a new challenge for everyone loomed on the horizon for 1996, the debut of Major League Soccer in the U.S. Open Cup.