Letters from Lexi

With one season remaining in her Kansas career, the time has arrived for KU soccer star Lexi Watts to pour everything she’s got into her final season on the pitch.

As she does, we’ll follow her every step of the way in the latest edition of our weekly diary series that will chronicle Watts' 2025 season.

Some of what you’ll read here, in Watts' own words, will focus on the stuff happening between the lines — big wins, memorable moments and the grind of the season.

But a lot of it will focus on Watts the person, who loves soccer, loves KU, loves her teammates & coaches and is looking to make one more mark on the program before she says goodbye.

The Watts File

Age: 21 | Number: 18 | Height: 5-7 | Position: Forward

High School: St. James Academy (Lenexa) | Club: Sporting Blue Valley

Notable: Lexi Watts began playing soccer at 3 years old and has not looked back. The daughter of soccer-playing parents, Watts quickly showed her skills in the game en route to earning all-league and all-state honors in high school, where she solidified her status as a goal-scoring machine... During an all-Big 12 freshman year at Kansas in 2022, Watts' 6 goals were the most by a KU freshman since 2012... In Year 2, Watts appeared in all 18 KU matches, finishing second in points scored and third in assists... Last season was Watts' true breakout season, as she finished with a team-best 21 points and 9 goals. Her shots on goal (38) and total shots (82) both ranked in the top seven on KU's all-time, single-season lists, and she was named to the Big 12's all-tournament team as the Most Outstanding Offensive Player of the 2024 Big 12 tourney, with a spot all-Big 12 first team following that.

KU record to date: 11-3-3 overall, 5-3-1 in Big 12 play

Next up: Sunday at Utah, 2 p.m. (central) kickoff (ESPN+); Oct. 30 vs. Colorado at Rock Chalk Park in the regular-season finale, 6 p.m. (central) kickoff (ESPN+)

Before the Kansas soccer team headed out to Utah for what could be a season-defining road trip, KU coach Nate Lie was asked if he was starting to see that his team — a mixture of veterans and rookies — understood that there’s a switch they need to flip for the stretch run in order to position themselves to make as much noise, or perhaps more, as they did in the 2024 postseason.

“I want to (see it),” Lie said. “I would like to because you have to find another gear this time of year and I think you’re more naturally tired from the physical effects of the season, from the emotional effects of the season, from the school stress, the ups and downs. And we’re not the easiest coaching staff to play for in terms of our expectations on a daily basis. All of that can weigh you down and we want to be playing our best this time of year, so we have to create an environment where they can find that next level and we can hit that extra gear.”

“I’m hoping that it starts to set in,” he added of the homestretch urgency. “Even when we reflect back on last year, it was around this time that it started to happen. So, I think it’s there. That’s our bet. And, certainly, stringing some wins together late could help.”

Three days later, the Jayhawks showed their coach exactly what he was looking for with a massive 3-1 win at BYU in front of a crowd of 3,000+ Cougars fans.

Lexi Watts (right) celebrates her goal vs. Cincinnati with sophomore teammates Jillian Gregorski (34) and Kate Langfelder (8). [Kansas Athletics photo]

While Lie entered the week wondering about the team’s psyche down the stretch, Watts was on the complete opposite side of the spectrum.

“We’re not worried about it. We’re not worried about it at all, but we also know we have to win these games.”

Watts said that mindset was something she sensed about her team, particularly the veterans, rather than something she knew for a fact.

“We haven’t really talked about it. We obviously talk about it on an individual basis before games in the locker room, like, ‘OK this is a must-win game.’ They’re all gonna be hard games again. They have been all season. But we just have to figure out a way to find good results.”

Does Watts feel the same urgency from the KU freshmen, who have been wildly productive and a huge part of this team’s season?

“I don’t know because they’re so young. They’re so nice and quiet and they’re not super-talkative. So, it’s kind of hard to tell. The big thing with them is going to be how the players coming off the bench can continue to be more of a threat and come in and give even more than they have.”

In short, Watts and the KU leaders will be happy with whatever they get from the freshmen moving forward as long as the actions live up to the standard they need, even if those come without much talk behind them.

For her part, Watts now has scored a goal in back-to-back games — she's up to 8 for the season, one shy of tying her single-season career-high — after scoring just one goal in an 8-game stretch during the middle of the season.

Watts during and after scoring the lone goal in a 1-0 win over Cincinnati last Sunday. [Kansas Athletics photos]

More important than that even, was the fact that Watts said earlier this week that the Jayhawks were still looking for that one complete game.

That may have come on Thursday night at BYU. But, there’s still room for more where that came from.

“We haven’t had any games where it’s been a whole 90-minute performance and we’ve played consistent from start to finish. So, I feel like we definitely need that. When is that gonna come out?”

Watts knows at least some of the answer to that question is in her hands. She also said she feels great about the role KU’s team captains — Caroline Castans, Brooke Otto and Sophie Dawe — have played in getting this team ready and keeping it there.

“Our captains are really good about pumping us up before games. They’re also never gonna really yell at us. I actually told Caroline the other day, ‘You need to scream. Like, you need to yell at us before a game and be like, ‘We can’t lose this game!’”

Watts, who is super-close with Castans, laughed after saying that because, as she knows all too well, delivering that type of motivation is not for everybody. In fact, it’s not for her.

“I just felt like we needed that, but I’m not the type of person that’s gonna do it. I just can’t take myself seriously enough to do it.”

So, in order to make sure it happened, Watts doubled down on her request, sending a text to assistant coach Tyler Smaha that said simply, “Hey, you need to light a fire under our asses.”

“I was like, practice is just too flat. We need something. Yell at us, do something, because maybe we’ll get more energy out of that. That was probably like my first time telling the coaches they need to do something.”

Said Lie of what his coaching career has shown him about teams flipping the switch: “Oftentimes circumstances dictate those emotions.”

That certainly was the case on Thursday night, when KU looked like the hungrier team from the opening kickoff. And here they are, stacking the pieces for another late-season push that would bring KU soccer to a place that it hasn’t been to very often.

The win over BYU was massive for KU’s chances of qualifying for the Big 12 tournament and also, as a key road win against a high-RPI opponent, should go a long way toward making KU an NCAA Tournament team, as well.