Last season was one for the history books for Louisville City FC

The club claimed its first USL Championship Players’ Shield, tying the league’s single-season record with 24 wins, totaling the third-most points in a regular season (76), and recording the second-most goals (86) for one of the most dominant campaigns in league history.

So, what if we told you that – based on a points-per-game basis – this year’s squad is even better?

• TRENDING UP: At the midway point of its 2025 regular season, LouCity has posted 34 points in 15 games, losing just once as it opened the season with a club-record 13 game undefeated streak. That’s an average of 2.27 points-per-game, up from the 2.24ppg mark the club set a season ago and one that would currently rank fourth in Championship history.

• DEFENSIVE IMPROVEMENT: The key to Louisville’s PPG uptick has come at the defensive end of the field. Louisville currently ranks second in the league in both goals conceded (12) and Expected Goals Against (12) to FC Tulsa but holds the league lead in Expected Goals Against/90 minutes (0.8xGA/90) having played three more games than the Western Conference contender.

• ROTATING THE GROUP: That defensive improvement has been maintained despite LouCity having to rotate its back three due to recent injuries and a busy schedule. With Arturo Ordóñez recuperating, Joshua Jones has stepped in to start the past two outings, while 16-year-old Brandon Dayes made his competitive debut for the side this past Sunday, starting and playing 55 minutes in its 1-0 win against North Carolina FC.

Dayes was the fifth different center back to start for LouCity this season, while the side has seen 19 different players record at least one start in the USL Championship. For Head Coach Danny Cruz, it’s a testament to the depth the squad possesses that it’s been able to maintain a strong pace in the race for the Players’ Shield.

“I thought on the weekend, when you look at North Carolina, you play a 16-year-old next to a guy that’s in his first year as a pro with the captain on the back line,” Cruz said this week. “Those three haven’t got a lot of reps together, but it was seamless, and it's because of the leadership that we have in the back, it’s because, for me, the work that we do in the video room.

“It looked like a group that had trained together quite a bit, and that’s something that we were really proud of and something for them to build on.”

LouCity heads west on Friday night for a nationally-televised clash that sees it visit Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC on CBS Sports Network at 9 p.m. ET. It’s a meeting we had circled early in the year as the showdown between the defending Championship title-holder in Colorado Springs and Players’ Shield holder Louisville.

With the visitors in a battle to retain its regular season title from a season ago with the Charleston Battery close behind, it should make for a compelling contest.

For LouCity, though, it’s also an opportunity to continue to raise the bar it established a season ago.

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This is an excerpt from The Rondo, the USL Championship's free twice-weekly newsletter. Get more stories like and more delivered directly to your inbox by subscribing at www.uslchampionship.com/newsletter.