Louisville City scores late goal to beat Lexington in Kentucky soccer rivalry
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- Louisville City beat Lexington Sporting Club, 2-1, in a USL Jägermeister Cup soccer match.
- The match was played at the Lexington SC Stadium in front of a record crowd.
- With the result, Louisville City wins the first edition of the Commonwealth Cup.
Louisville City scored two late goals to dramatically turn the match around and defeat Lexington Sporting Club 2-1 at the Lexington SC Stadium in the latest installment of the rivalry series between Kentucky’s two professional men’s soccer clubs.
Jacob Greene gave Lexington the lead in the 87th minute following a perfectly executed two-on-one breakaway chance. This marked the first goal that Lexington had ever scored against LouCity, and it put the hosts in position to secure their first win against Louisville.
But LouCity substitute Jake Morris had other ideas. He scored in the 91st minute to equalize the match and in the 97th minute to win the game. Morris’ first goal came after he deposited a rebounded shot following a scramble in the Lexington penalty box. His second goal was a stone-cold belter with his left foot from a tight angle.
“I think this game for sure was one of my best,” Morris said postgame. “… The ambition to get in the box and want to score, I think that’s what made me score the two goals.”
“Second goal, I mean, that’s a banger,” Greene, Lexington’s goal scorer, added about Morris’ strike that won LouCity the match. “There’s not much we can do about that.”
The dramatic result came in front of a record crowd at the Lexington SC Stadium. A sold-out crowd of 8,252 fans packed into the venue for the contest, with plenty of fans in purple supporting the visitors.
The result also brought an end to Lexington’s six-match unbeaten streak in all competitions.
“Obviously we left it a little bit short in terms of the result that we wanted, but I was proud of the guys,” Lexington head coach Terry Boss said. “We’ve got to find a way to see that game out. It’s a part of it. It’s a part of maturing, growing. All these experiences are what we need to go where we want to go.”
Both Lexington and Louisville are members of the USL Championship, which is the second-highest tier of men’s professional soccer in the United States.
But Saturday’s match wasn’t part of that league’s regular season. Instead, the it was part of the USL Jagermeister Cup, a newly expanded competition in which Lexington and Louisville are part of the same six-team group. Saturday marked the fourth and final group stage game of the competition for both Lexington and Louisville.
Both Lexington and Louisville have been eliminated from the competition.
LouCity finished Saturday’s match with 34 shots compared to only nine for Lexington, and the visitors also enjoyed an 8-2 advantage in shots on target. Sixteen of the game’s final 17 shots were from LouCity. Despite this gap in attacking chances, Lexington had strong passages of play in the match.
“When I talk about growth, I think we could have controlled the game a little bit better at times,” Boss added. “The game got a little bit more open than we wanted it to. Look, they make it difficult to play. They want to be direct, they want to chase, they want to press. And it’s on us to be able to have the calmness and the confidence to be able to play through it. There’s times I think we did it really well, and there’s times I think that we can really improve in that area.”
Both teams also hit the post via headers.
Earlier this year in May, LouCity scored a 2-0 victory over LSC at Lynn Family Stadium in the Derby City. That match, played just a few days before the Kentucky Derby, was part of the USL Championship’s regular season.
Both matches between Lexington and Louisville this year were part of the first Commonwealth Cup, a new rivalry series created for the teams. Louisville City won the inaugural Commonwealth Cup as a result of its two victories over Lexington.
The Commonwealth Cup was awarded following Saturday’s match in an on-field trophy presentation that featured Kentucky Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman and Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton.
“This is what the league needs,” veteran LouCity attacker and team captain Brian Ownby said of the emerging rivalry between Kentucky’s pro soccer teams.
Lexington, Louisville continue to grow professional soccer rivalry
Saturday night marked the third all-time competitive meeting between Lexington Sporting Club and Louisville City.
Previously, LouCity had scored a pair of victories over LSC. Now, the boys in purple are a perfect 3-for-3 against Lexington.
In April 2023, LouCity defeated LSC 1-0 in the second round of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, a national single-elimination tournament held each year. In May, Louisville defeated Lexington 2-0 in a USL Championship match.
Both of those games were played at Lynn Family Stadium in Louisville.
Saturday’s match was the first time the clubs faced one another in a competitive match at the Lexington SC Stadium, which opened last September.
Lexington also debuted a special new uniform for Saturday’s rivalry match. LSC wore a new kit that’s inspired by the “icicles” jersey worn by the Kentucky men’s basketball team during the 1994-95 season. LSC’s blue-and-white kit — which is a stark contrast to the club’s normal black and green color scheme — has been a hit with fans: Lexington has already announced that its “icicles” shirt is the best-selling jersey in the team’s young history.
It’s also the latest uniform from LSC with a nod to the club’s location. Lexington’s normal home uniform invokes design elements from horse racing and its normal road kit is bourbon-themed.
There was also a strong Kentucky basketball presence during the pregame festivities at the Lexington SC Stadium. Prematch, star Kentucky basketball guard Otega Oweh held an hour-long autograph session behind the supporters’ section inside the venue.
If Lexington and Louisville are to face each other another time this season, it could only come as part of the USL Championship playoffs. And it could only come in the final, title-deciding match of those playoffs.
Louisville City, which plays in the Eastern Conference, boasts an 11-1-5 (W-L-D) mark in USL Championship matches this season. Its 38 points are second in both the Eastern Conference and in the league overall.
Lexington Sporting Club is 4-6-7 this season in USL Championship play, with its 19 points good enough for 10th place in a crowded 12-team Western Conference. The top eight teams in each conference advance to the playoffs.
“Louisville is one of the best teams in the league, and I think we both threw punches tonight and they landed a couple later than we’d like,” Boss said. “But I think that the guys have a great level of confidence that they can play with anyone. We’re pretty confident that our best is good enough.”
Record crowd shows up for Lexington versus Louisville rivalry soccer match
That record crowd of 8,252 fans on Saturday night at the Lexington SC Stadium was the largest crowd to watch a soccer match at the venue.
“The crowd was amazing. The fans were amazing,” Greene said. “Today was like, the biggest day for us, and I don’t think we could have even got the goal without the fans. Without the fans, we’re nothing.”
Previously, the top attendance for an LSC men’s match at the stadium was 6,012 fans, which came in LSC’s most recent home game on June 20.
The top attendance for a Lexington Sporting Club women’s match at the stadium — the club’s professional women’s team plays in the USL Super League — was 3,946 fans, an attendance mark that was set on the stadium’s opening last September.
The Lexington SC Stadium is listed as being able to seat 7,500 fans.
The meeting between Lexington Sporting Club and Louisville City in May at Louisville’s Lynn Family Stadium had a reported attendance of 8,233 fans, which was slightly smaller than Saturday’s announced crowd.
This story was originally published July 26, 2025 at 9:10 PM.
