As the 2016 USL regular season heads toward an end, the Richmond Kickers have finally found their footing. The club’s form, including a 1-0 victory against Orlando City B this past Saturday at City Stadium, has catapulted them into the top three in the Eastern Conference as one of the hottest teams in the entire league.

“The recent month or two have been great,” Kickers forward Brian Ownby told USLSoccer.com. “We’ve been on a little streak of five or six wins in a row. We tied a couple, but we’re getting points with this nice run at the end of the season. Heading toward the playoffs you want to be clicking. We went through a rough spell about a third of the way through the season. That happens. You’re not going to be perfect all season. This run has been great, though. It has us confident.”

During that first third of the season it took tinkering from Coach Leigh Cowlishaw to overcome what defender Hugh Roberts termed “mishaps.”

“We have a different lineup compared to the beginning of the season,” Roberts said. “We’ve had a lot of players through many games. Despite mishaps, we’ve stuck together. We knew we were a good team. We’re happy things are starting to click toward the end of the year.

“Defense has been key. We have that chemistry from last year. We have a mentality of doing well no matter what the offense is doing.”