After knocking off Spokane Velocity FC on July 4, Fort Wayne Football Club moved into fourth place in the USL League One standings. On that same night, Corpus Christi FC picked up a victory to pull into 13th place.

Tonight, eighth-place Fort Wayne FC (10-9-9, 39 points) will take to the turf at the Cabaniss Athletic Complex in south Texas to play ninth-place Corpus Christi FC (9-10-9, 36 points) in a match with significant League One playoff implications. Fort Wayne would pull six points clear of the Sharks with just three matches left for both clubs with a win, while a draw would keep Fort Wayne’s lead at three points.

Corpus Christi would draw level on points with a victory, but Fort Wayne’s superior goal differential (plus-6, compared to minus-8 for the Sharks) would maintain its status as a playoff team.

For a Fort Wayne roster that counts 17 first-year professionals, trying to hold off a hard-charging Corpus Christi squad – as well as five other clubs still mathematically alive for the final postseason berth – the last several matches and the final four to close out the regular season have already provided League One’s youngest club a simulation of what the postseason might represent.

“We’ve been in the playoffs now for about a month, it feels like,” Fort Wayne FC head coach Mike Avery said. “It’s really good for our club. We’re a young group. It’s really important for us to gain that experience and then to keep growing in that experience.”

Fort Wayne, like Corpus Christi FC, stands as a first-year club in League One after playing several seasons in League Two. Fort Wayne spent five years in the pre-professional league before moving up to League One, coinciding with the opening of Ruoff Mortgage Stadium.

Despite eight years as a pre-professional club before moving to League One this season, Corpus Christi’s 5,000-seat stadium remains mostly unfinished, aside from one set of bleachers that’s been constructed.

However, Sharks head coach Eamon Zayed – whose hat trick for Indy Eleven in a match dubbed the “Miracle at the Mike” in 2016 propelled the Eleven to its first-ever championship – stands as no stranger to success in important moments.

As Fort Wayne FC defender Michael Rempel explained, the club will need to play as one cohesive unit not just tonight but also in Saturday’s match at Union Omaha, which leads the Charlotte Independence by a single point for the Players’ Shield, awarded to the League One regular-season champions. Omaha enters Saturday’s match having won its last five straight.

“This is all teamwork that we have to have going into the last few games,” Rempel said. “It’s not just one person, it takes everyone together. If we have one person with the wrong mindset, that will affect everyone, so we try and stay positive and just encourage everyone, and stay on the same side so we can accomplish our goal of going into the postseason and winning it all.”

Fort Wayne will finish the last two weeks of the regular season with home matches, starting on Oct. 17 against the Sarasota Paradise. Fort Wayne FC played the Paradise, a fellow League One expansion side and one of four clubs within six points of the playoffs, to a 2-2 draw on March 14 to pick up its first professional standings point.

Another expansion side, fourth-place Athletic Club Boise, will then visit Ruoff Mortgage Stadium in the regular-season finale for both clubs Oct. 24.

With a playoff berth still in the balance for Fort Wayne FC, players are doing everything within their power to prepare for each match – particularly with the travel to Texas, then Nebraska, this week.

“It’s just taking the rest we need at the hotels and the good nutrition that helps the body to recover,” Rempel said of the steps being taken. “We know we have important games and we cannot relax at training, so the intensity is always high. It’s getting the sleep we need, the recovery is always important.”