LOUISVILLE. Ky. (WDRB) -- Two nights after the sirens, the stillness hit harder.
Lumen Field was empty Tuesday, the crowd noise replaced by the sounds of footfalls on the turf and voices from the sidelines. Racing Louisville came back to finish a match that never really felt like a match, not after what happened to Savannah DeMelo on Sunday. They taped purple bands to their wrists — SD7 scrawled in black — and did the most ordinary, most difficult thing professionals do. They played.
Seattle won it late, 1–0, on a clinical Jess Fishlock finish, its first win since August 1. That belongs in the box score. The night belongs to DeMelo. And to the players who packed away their emotions from that event as best they could.
It was tougher for many of them than most will know.
Racing head coach Bev Yanez walked into her postgame session carrying the kind of weight you can see. She missed time earlier this season after a miscarriage, and she made no attempt to pretend this was business as usual.
“Football becomes, very quickly, completely irrelevant," Yanez said. "And the concern for her, and her family, everybody that cares for her very deeply, was really, really high. ... I think for you know myself, processing it and relating to everybody that had processed it, and her experiencing it, I immediately just went to mom mode. You know, you know, she's someone's daughter. ... I can't imagine what it would be like to watch the TV screen as a mom and as a dad and as to see that many people around my daughter and an ambulance on the field."
DeMelo is alert, in good spirits, still in a Seattle hospital undergoing tests. Her mother and father are with her. That’s the piece everyone kept coming back to — not tactics, not standings — just Sav and her family.
There were small, human moments that cut through everything. Yanez said Seattle coach Laura Harvey drove her and Racing GM Caitlyn Milby to the hospital after Sunday’s abandonment. Staffers returned Monday with snacks and a coloring book. Teammates filtered in to say hello. Two opponents, two organizations, pressed pause on the rivalry and did the right thing.
“It’s been a blur,” Yanez said. “We knew pretty quickly the right thing Sunday was no game. Tonight was about doing what we could for Sav.”
From the first whistle of the resumed second half, Racing looked like a group trying to carry two loads — the job and the jolt. Chances came and went. Shoulders slumped, then squared. When it unraveled at the end, co-captain Janine Sonis didn’t point fingers.
“No goal is one person,” she said. “We’ll all take responsibility. What’s frustrating is these are controllable moments… but it’s been a weird couple of days. Our priority is Sav and her well-being.”
"No goal is ever one individual," she said. ". . . It's from front to back. We will all take responsibility for whatever happens on the pitch. ... What's frustrating is these are controllable moments."
Racing defender Ellie Jean put it more simply.
“We’re proud we showed up today,” she said. “It’s been heavy. We’ll give ourselves a second to breathe, then we’ll go again — for Louisville and for Sav.”
Both teams wore the same wristbands. Both teams stood in the same space Sunday night — worried, waiting, realizing how little a scoreboard can matter. On Tuesday, Racing tried to honor that, and her.
The table says this was a late, gut-punch loss that keeps Louisville on the playoff line with work to do in Utah on Sunday. The heart says the measure of the night lived elsewhere — in an empty stadium, in a hospital room, in the way a team found a way to play when playing felt like the last thing on the list.
They didn’t get points. They did show up and finished what they started, as difficult as it was.
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