Louisville City FC played its final regular-season match at Louisville Slugger Field Saturday, capping a successful five-season run at the venue.
Since beginning play in 2015, Louisville City FC has hosted home matches at Louisville Slugger Field–a ballpark that serves as home to Minor League Baseball’s Louisville Bats (Class AAA; International League). The club has been among USL Championship‘s most successful organizations in terms of attendance since beginning play, and will look to carry that success to Lynn Family Stadium, its new soccer-specific home that will open next year.
In the meantime, the club closed out its run at Louisville Slugger Field on Saturday with an 8-3 win over the Swope Park Rangers. The win, which saw Louisville City FC overcome an early 3-0 deficit, was a fitting end to a memorable five-season stretch at Louisville Slugger Field that saw the club build a strong following and helped pave the way for a new soccer-specific stadium. More from the Courier-Journal:
LouCity currently sits at sixth place in the USL Eastern conference, and barring an upset to some of the higher seeds come playoffs, Louisville will not be hosting a post-season game.
The importance of what might be the last soccer game in Slugger wasn’t lost on LouCity head coach John Hackworth, and he was happy his team could leave on a happy note.
“I think to end, to come back on a historic night, in stats but also in front of these fans — the last time we are here in the regular season in (Slugger) — what a way to end and cap an unbelievable five-year run here,” Hackworth said after the 8-3 victory on Saturday. “Historic in many ways.”
LouCity overcame a 3-0 defect to win Saturday’s match, scoring eight unanswered goals to defeat the Rangers. Only twice in USL history has a team comeback down three goals to win a game, and only three times has a team scored eight unanswered goals. LouCity also had seven different players score a goal in the win, which is another first in the franchises’ five-year history.
Lynn Family Stadium is on track to open next spring, and is being planned as the anchor of a larger redevelopment initiative in the city’s Butchertown neighborhood.
Image courtesy Louisville City FC.
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