No. 16 Louisville Edged by No. 8 Duke in Home Finale

Saturday, October 17

LOUISVILLE, KY

1:00 PM

University of Louisville

(9-5, 3-2)

Duke

(10-3, 5-1)

Team	1	2	3	4	Final F
Duke	1	0	0	0	1
Louisville	0	0	0	0	0

Louisville Field Hockey alumni - 50th season celebration

Louisville Field Hockey celebrated 50 years as an NCAA sactioned sport in conjunction with Saturday's game against Duke

October 17, 2026 | Field Hockey

Box Score Justine Sowry Postgame Interview

By: Harper Hawkins

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The No. 16-ranked University of Louisville field hockey team fell 1-0 to No. 8 Duke in their final home game of the season Saturday afternoon at Trager Stadium.

"It was a great game," said UofL head coach Justine Sowry. "Duke's a great opponent and coached very well. They've been dominant in statistics on goal and defensively they don't give up much. We knew it was going to be a tough contest and I'm just really proud of our efforts and what we were able to produce to out-stat them, which is not easy to do. Unfortunately, they capitalized early. and we had one called back, which could have changed the momentum of the game a little bit. Overall, I felt like we were able to keep the pressure up on Duke and continued to have opportunities right up to the final whistle. Unfortunately, to get a loss like that is hard, but at the same time, all I'm asking is to have great work rate, great effort, be competitive and just try to get better and better on both sides of the ball and I think we did today when you compare to our previous contests in the last couple of weeks. So as long as we can move forward positively and use that energy moving forward, I'll be pretty happy."

The game was a battle between a pair of top-20 Atlantic Coast Conference teams with a total of nine cards issued. Throughout the game, the Cardinals (9-6, 3-3 ACC) maintained a 14-5 edge in shots, as well as leading 4-2 in shots on goal and a 7-2 margin in corners. Louisville goalkeeper Emily Young collected one save, while Duke's Kaiya Chepow finished the game with three.

Duke (11-3, 6-1 ACC) took an early lead in the first quarter, with Alaina McVeigh scoring the lone goal of the game.

Louisville responded by increasing their offensive attack, earning five corners in the first quarter. With 4:03 remaining in the first quarter, the Cards registered what appeared to be the equalizer, but Lauren Masters' goal was disallowed. UofL continued to attack, but Duke's defense held strong against the Cardinals' attack.

With just under five minutes remaining in regulation, Young was lifted in favor of an extra field player, but Louisville was unable to capitalize.

The Cardinals will return to action next weekend when they travel to the state of Virginia to face Virginia and Richmond on Friday and Sunday respectively.