In St. Louis FC’s last stop before the biggest game in the club’s brief history, the team had some very important business to take care of.

While Wednesday’s U.S. Open Cup quarterfinal game with reigning Major League Soccer champion Atlanta United is an unprecedented opportunity for STLFC to play the best MLS has to offer, the team’s Open Cup success has obscured the team’s severe drought in USL play. Since getting off to a 5-1-2 start and being among the league leaders, the team had gone 0-3-3 and was barely above the playoff cut line.

The winless streak extended to seven games on Saturday with a 2-2 tie with Loudoun United in front of 4,563 at the Soccer Park. STLFC hasn’t won a league match since April 27, meaning after going all of May and all of June without a win in league play, they are now getting a jump on July. If there’s any solace for STLFC, they finished the game strongly, with second-half goals by Kyle Greig and Russell Cicerone, and threatened to get the game-winner in the closing minutes but couldn’t.

Of course, the strong finish was necessitated by a poor start, which saw the team fall behind 2-0 51 minutes into the game. So while coach Anthony Pulis could derive some satisfaction by the team’s comeback, it was strongly tempered by the situation that required it.