Stars of week included Chiefs, Sporting KC’s Johnny Russell, Whit and Witt: KC Replay
It’s not time for football season yet. Heck, we haven’t even hit training camp.
But in the mindset of champions being forged in the offseason, the Chiefs convened this past week for the first of three rounds of spring practice.
They don’t really call these sessions practice, but rather “organized team activities.” Activities makes us think of things like whittling, geocaching (lie! we’ve never geocached) or pinning tails on donkeys, so we’ll use the increasingly common shorthand slang for such workouts: OTAs.
The Chiefs held three days worth of them last week, and they have more in their immediate future before conducting a mandatory minicamp in mid-June, followed by a break of approximately a month before training camp begins.
Oh — Sporting KC and the Royals also had some notable moments in the past week, and they, too, are accounted for in this week’s edition of KC Replay.
Chiefs hold 3 days of workouts
No one’s conducting roll-call at OTAs, so if a player is MIA, it’s not that big of a deal. But KC Star beat writer Herbie Teope noted the absence of left tackle Orlando Brown Jr., who’s not currently under contract but carries the Chiefs’ franchise tag.
Again, no harm, no foul — attendance is voluntary right now, and how many of us would show up for work if we weren’t getting paid to be there?
So Brown remained in Florida, where he is working out on his own, according to Chiefs coach Andy Reid, and apparently trying to find a new agent. But there were plenty of other players on hand for the Tuesday-Thursday OTA sessions, including Patrick Mahomes, who lobbed pinpoint passes to some of his newest receivers.
It was casual, there was no hitting, but it was most certainly a reminder that, while it’s not yet football season, training camp really isn’t that far off.
Sporting advances to quarterfinals
Leave it to Johnny F. Russell to save the day. We’re not going to explain the “F,” because it’s a family newspaper and doing so could spell the end of your beloved KC Replay. Suffice to say the KC captain seldom shrinks in big moments.
He got on the scoreboard twice Tuesday night against the black-clad Houston Dynamo at Children’s Mercy Park, firing home a screamer and adding a deftly placed penalty kick to make winners of the team he’s leading through an uncharacteristically trying season.
With that victory in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, Sporting has advanced to the annual tournament’s quarterfinal round. Sporting’s next match in the Cup tourney will be on June 22 at CMP against a truly feisty USL side — the Union Omaha Owls, who’ve dispatched two other MLS opponents to reach the round of eight.
Russell will be ready for ‘em, no doubt.
Royals halt an extended slide
Say this for the Royals: They may be on pace to lose the most games in a season in their half-century of existence, but they seem to know how to make a statement when they do manage to win.
To wit, and thanks to (Bobby) Witt, they snapped a six-game losing streak on Thursday at the Minnesota Twins, as Junior’s two-out, two-strike RBI double in the eighth put them ahead for the first time in the game following a game-tying two-run double by yet another Witt, er, Whit — Whit Merrifield.
Scott Barlow also played a key role and earned the save, his fifth of the season.
Current drop pair of 1-0 games
Tough week, again, for the Kansas City Current.
Save for one defensive lapse in the second half, the Current stood tall in Seattle on Wednesday but lost 1-0 to the OL Reign. The defeat in the Northwest came on the heels of another 1-0 loss last Saturday (May 21) to Angel City in Southern California.
So the Current entered this weekend still hunting for their first league win, but they haven’t exactly been getting blown out. Since losing their NWSL opener 3-0 at Portland, they’ve fallen 2-1 to the NC Courage, 2-0 to the Houston Dash, 1-0 to the Reign and 1-0 to Angel City (they also mixed in a 2-2 tie against Orlando).
Add it up, and the loss to the Thorns excepted, that’s four losses by a cumulative five goals — perhaps an indication that the Current are on the cusp of better days ahead.
