After putting on an electric postseason performance, Sporting Kansas City’s season was put to bed by the Houston Dynamo Sunday, Nov. 26, capping off a truly shocking run.

Sporting started off their playoff bid with a nail-biting penalty shootout win against San Jose after going 0-0 in regulation in the wild card match. SKC’s goalkeeper showed why he is the top penalty defender in the league, making a clutch PK save to secure the win 4-2 in penalties.

They dominated in round one of the tournament, a series bet of three games upsetting the No. 1 seed of the tournament on the western conference side of the bracket Saint Louis in two games with scores of 4-1 and 2-1. 

Unfortunately Sporting’s loss to the Dynamo ended their postseason run in the Western conference semifinal. 

Houston’s Franco Escobar scored the match’s only goal in the 39th minute. Sporting nearly struck back two minutes later but a controversial goal line clearance from the Dynamos defense had the team looking for a game changing penalty kick. 

The shot from Daniel Salloi came off of the arm of Houston’s Erik Sviatchenko on the goal line. It is argued by Sporting and fans alike that the arm was in an unnatural position when struck thus it should have been a red card and penalty in favor of Sporting, however the play received no call from the referee. 

It was then checked by VAR but deemed a legal play continuing the contest, ultimately ending 0-1 in favor of Houston. 

Sporting fan Tanner Pearce looks to the goal line cameras as part of the reason to blame on this referee’s controversial no-call.

“I think if they had either the right angle or just a better frame rate on the camera that that would have been called. I think a higher quality production crew would have helped in making that call,” Pearce said.

Sporting had a record breaking bad start to the season, going winless the first ten games. The team had players get healthy, gaining back role players such as Melia and pulled through to get into the wildcard match making and gaining high expectations from fans even though they were seeded last in the bracket, making a loss like this all the more heartbreaking.

“To see that go down the drain in that round, it’s kind of disappointing, but I still think making the playoffs and getting to that second round was a success overall for the season,” Pearce said.