Fort Wayne Football Club was dealt its first defeat on home grounds in USL League One play on Saturday night, falling 2-0 to the first-place team, Union Omaha.
Mother Nature was involved in the match – rain poured down for most of the night at Ruoff Mortgage Stadium – as a crowd of 3,801 was on hand at 6411 Bass Road.
Union Omaha got goals from Allen Gavilanes in the 61st minute and Sergio Ors in the 74th minute, and Cole Jensen stopped two shots for the clean sheet.
“They’re obviously at the top of the table for a reason and they’re there almost every year,” Fort Wayne FC coach Mike Avery said. “I think for a long stretch in the first half, we were terrific and we’ve showed that we can play with these teams. But then our youth comes out and (so do) the little details we need to fine-tune.”
Fort Wayne FC has the youngest team in USL League One and remains just below the playoff line in ninth place. Fourteen matches remain in the regular season for Fort Wayne FC.
“You need experiences like this to learn. It’s not always fun to do it. But the only way you can do that is to keep going,” Avery said. “We earn their respect every time we play them. But at the end of the day, (we need) to close out. We have chances that go missing at one end, then they come down and hit a great goal. That’s the difference. It’s just a little maturity in certain moments and it’ll come with time.”
Fort Wayne FC’s Bernd Schipmann stopped 5 of 7 shots in a match that saw his side lead the possession stats, 54.4% to 45.6%.
“We’ve learned we can play with the best team in the league,” Fort Wayne FC’s Jeremy Garay said. “They’re obviously in first place and, two weeks ago, we played well against (defending-champion) One Knoxville, too, (in a 2-1 loss). So, we’ve shown we can play against the best teams. It’s just the little details we’re not finding right now. We can learn from this and just get better, honestly.”
While it was the first ever regular-season meeting between Fort Wayne FC and Union Omaha, they did compete in a Prinx Tires USL Cup match June 6 that was won 4-2 by Union Omaha in Omaha, Nebraska.
Fort Wayne FC (7-5-6) finished the match Saturday night with only 10 men on the field because Michael Rempel was assessed a red card for a professional foul in the 88th minute. Fort Wayne FC is 4-1-3 in home matches during the USL League One season.
The loss leaves only two league teams unbeaten at home – Forward Madison, which is 6-0-1 at home (the only draw coming against Fort Wayne FC), and Union Omaha, which is 7-0-2 at home and 12-5-2 overall.
Fort Wayne FC isn’t back at Ruoff Mortgage Stadium until Aug. 15, when it plays host to Chattanooga Red Wolves SC, but the Autumn Gold & Black do have a road match this Saturday in Lancaster, California, against AV Alta FC (7-5-8). The teams met on May 30 at Ruoff Mortgage Stadium, playing to a scoreless draw.
Match photos
Videos
Box score
FORT WAYNE FC 0-0-0
UNION OMAHA FC 0-2-2
August 1, 2026
At Ruoff Mortgage Stadium, Fort Wayne, Indiana
Attendance: 3,801
RECORDS: FW 7-5-6; OMA 12-5-2
GOALS: FW—None; OMA—Allen Gavilanes, Sergio Ors.
ASSISTS: FW—None; OMA—Younes Boudadi, Pato Batello Faz.
SAVES: FW—Bernd Schipmann 5; OMA—Cole Jensen 2.
POSSESSION: FW—54.4%; OMA—45.6%.
YELLOW CARDS: FW—Tiago Dias; OMA—Blake Malone, Gabriel de Freitas, Marion Vargas.
RED CARDS: FW— Michael Rempel; OMA—None.
REFEREE: Jorge Escobar.
About Fort Wayne Football Club
Fort Wayne Football Club, founded in 2019, is a professional soccer club playing its first season in USL League One in 2026. The club plays home matches at Ruoff Mortgage Stadium, which opened May 2, 2026, and is a soccer-specific venue. In pre-professional USL League Two, Fort Wayne Football Club won division titles in 2023, 2024 and 2025. For more information, visit FortWayneFC.com.
About United Soccer League
Founded in 1986, the United Soccer League (USL) is the largest and fastest-growing soccer organization in the United States, impacting more than 200 communities nationwide. The USL is the first and only organization to offer a comprehensive youth-to-professional pathway for both men and women under one ecosystem. This structure includes four men’s leagues: the newly announced, top-tier professional Division I league, the USL Championship (Division II), USL League One (Division III), and USL League Two (pre-professional). The women’s pathway includes the top-tier USL Super League (Division I), which debuted in 2024, and USL W League, the country’s leading pre-professional women’s league. The USL also oversees USL Academy, a progressive talent development platform, and USL Youth, a premier national youth platform.