Switchbacks coach Alan McCann hopes Tuesday night will be the last time his team needs the reminder. 

“We left the locker room telling the lads, ‘We hope this is the last piece of evidence. I felt that they didn’t need any more evidence to know that they can win any game. That they can fight,’” he said. 

Colorado Springs’ run in tournament play came to an end on Tuesday night in a 2-1 defeat at Hartford Athletic in the Prinx Tires USL Cup semifinal. 

At the heart of the loss was an opening 37 minutes of play, which McCann described as an attitude problem. He said his team played with fear instead of being themselves. 

“We had no fear against the (Colorado) Rapids. We had no fear against (Sporting Kansas City), why should we go out with fear against Hartford from the start,” McCann said. “Why? Because they send long balls at us, we don’t deal with them early and then we don’t pick up the second balls so they press us? That’s fear based. That’s not the mentality.”

The first-half opening gave host Athletic the opportunity to dominate the pace of play and score two match-deciding goals before the Switchbacks started playing their game. 

In the final minutes of the first half and the majority of the second, Colorado Springs took over, earning 10 corner kicks and scoring a goal in the 82nd minute courtesy of forward Jonas Fjeldberg.

The Switchbacks’ rally fell short, and the 2-1 result at Hartford ended an impressive showing by Colorado Springs in tournament play this season. 

In the USL Cup, the Switchbacks won five matches, including a perfect 4-0 run through the group stage in which the club outscored opponents 10-1. In the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, Colorado Springs earned its first win over a Major League Soccer team on April 14 with a 3-0 victory over Sporting Kansas City. On April 29, the Switchbacks battled the Colorado Rapids through regulation, extra time and seven rounds of a penalty shootout. The contest marked Colorado Springs’ deepest run in the Open Cup, ending in the round of 16. 

Now, Colorado Springs faces the end of the USL Championship regular season with a potential postseason berth as the club looks to win its second USL Championship league title. Seven matches remain in the club’s regular season, including Friday’s home contest against San Antonio FC. 

With no more two-match weeks on the schedule, it’s a return to business as usual for the Switchbacks, but the lessons from this year’s tournaments have to stick. 

“Fear nobody,” McCann said. “The reason we’re out of the USL Cup now is because we weren’t ourselves for a half of football in the whole tournament. That’s the one game we lose in the whole tournament, but it’s when it matters in a knockout moment, in the semifinal. We were a game away from getting our hands on the trophy. 

“The lesson and the positivity from it is be yourself. Be yourself without any hesitation, any doubt and once you’re gonna do that, you’re gonna win football matches.”

McCann believes that experience from this year’s knockout stages will benefit the club during the playoffs, where it will once again be win or go home. 

“If you go and waste a half or you go in with any of those minutes doubting yourself, you’re going to get punished,” he said.