You ever go to a sporting event and see a team jump for joy at the end because they won? (Well, yeah. That happened at the World Series this weekend). But this was a different sport and, obviously, something big just happened, but you don’t know what?

On Saturday, I was at Trager Stadium, the home of the Louisville Cardinals field hockey team. Louisville beat Syracuse in a close match. Syracuse, down 3-2 in the fourth quarter, pulled its goalie with about six minutes left in the match. Louisville held on and was joyous in victory eeven though one of its players was down on the ground, injured.

What was going on?

The University of Louisville field hockey team defeated No. 9-ranked Syracuse 3-2 in an Atlantic Coast Conference battle Saturday afternoon at Trager Stadium in both teams’ regular season finale.

With the win, the Cardinals (8-9, 2-6 ACC) earned the No.8 seed in the ACC Tournament and will face No.1 North Carolina Tuesday at 10 a.m. at Trager Stadium.  

“We knew the importance of today’s game,” said UofL head coach Justine Sowry. “Obviously if we win, we’re in the tournament and if we lose, we’re hosting a tournament we’re not in. We really tried to stay focused throughout the week and it was all about the process and stick to Louisville field hockey. We had some strategies about how to play against a really talented Syracuse lineup.”

Here are game highlights:

So, Louisville squeaked into the ACC tournament, an event it hosts today beginning at 10 a.m. The match will be on ESPN.

Here’s the link.

And the Cards are going to take on the top team in the conference, with a slight advantage of being on its home field.

Here’s some background on Trager.

A premier championship venue that has hosted a total of nine NCAA Championships, the artificial turf surface field is one of the few NCAA Division I venues dedicated solely to field hockey.

If you’ve ever been on the UofL campus, you know it has a sports facility for every one of its events. I’ve been to pretty much all of them. And it looks like the ACC field hockey tournament is free to the public.

Free is good!