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: 12-3-3 overall, 6-3-1 in Big 12 play

Next up: Thursday vs. No. 11 Colorado at Rock Chalk Park, 6 p.m. (central) kickoff on ESPN+

We’ve reached the point in the season where Watts is set to play her final regular-season game at home, when the Jayhawks play host to Colorado on Thursday night at 6 p.m. at Rock Chalk Park.

It’s the day before Halloween, which gave us the opportunity to talk to Watts about both soccer and the spooky holiday.

Watts has never been a huge fan of Halloween. She did dress up and has even into college. She always liked the candy. And she’s got a couple of costumes that stand out as her favorites over the years.

Here’s a look back at a few of them, starting with what seemed to be her absolute favorite, which she first started to wear around age 7.

“I was a punk rocker for like three years in a row, like bright pink hair, zebra clothes, and I loved the outfit. That’s why I wore it multiple years in a row. I had gloves and I just remember picking out my candy with my gloves and I just thought I was so cool. I loved it!”

From there, Watts joined forces with her friends and did the group costume thing in middle school, where she was one of a handful of “Things,” from the famed Dr. Seuss books.

Specifically, she was Thing 3.

“We went all out for it and we loved that one. Circle on the shirt. Red Skirt. Tall socks. One of my friends wore space buns. It was awesome. And it was pretty comfortable, too.”

Watts stopped doing the Halloween thing early on in her high school career but picked it back up the past few years at KU.

Comfort was the key once again, and she found something that she not only never grew out of but also could wear year after year while being extremely comfortable at the same time.

“A lot of people around KU kind of dress (in a way where they’re) showing a little too much skin and I’m not about that, so I was actually Justin Bieber. The last two years I’ve been too lazy to buy a costume.”

That’s not to say she didn’t have the proper attire. Huge hoodie. Baggy shorts, with the PSD brand underwear sticking above the waist line. Socks pulled up. Shaggy hair sticking out of the hoodie.

Drawn-on beard?

“No. I didn’t go that far. But that’s one of my favorite costumes ever just because it was so easy and so comfortable. I’m not the type to spend all my money on a costume. A lot of people will have like five different costumes, and I’m only gonna wear it once and I don’t get the point. I feel like I’ll always be going for the funny costume.”

Watts and her boyfriend, Wilder Evers, a men’s basketball walk-on, have dabbled in the couple costume genre, but she hasn’t been too impressed with their efforts.

“The first time was like an alien-themed thing. It wasn’t good, though. So, we don’t really do that.”

This might be the first year since high school that she has no plans to dress up at all. Not even as Bieber.

The Jayhawks have their Senior Night game on Thursday and then leave Saturday for the Big 12 tournament in Texas.

So, it’s more about relaxing and preparing to keep their current hot streak going into the postseason.

Watts, herself, is on a bit of a hot streak, having scored in each of the past three games to bring her season total to 9 goals, which ties her career high.

Breaking that is important to her, mostly because she views it as her job to score and deems whether she played good or bad by whether she scored or not. There’s more to it than that, though, and Watts said she thinks about breaking her own single-season mark pretty often.

“We practice every day and have a couple games a week, so a couple times a week, maybe a couple times a day. I definitely want to beat it, especially because it’s my last year and I want to end on a high note.”

Her three goals in the last three games have moved her to 9 on the season, tying her total from her freshman year. So, at this point, with three guaranteed games remaining but potentially as many as 6 or 7, Watts definitely has time to get No. 10 and perhaps push the total even higher.

She said she considers herself to be in a little bit of a zone right now and appreciates the way the goals are coming. Some, have been what she calls “cool goals,” with great skill involved. And others have fallen into her lap, like the one she scored last week at BYU.

“The easiest goal of my entire life. I literally didn’t have to do anything. I was just in the right place at the right time. I wasn’t even facing the goal and then when I turned to see where the shot (a header by Jillian Gregorski) went, it hit off the crossbar and landed right at my feet and all I had to do was flick it in.”

This is what we like to see. pic.twitter.com/Q7MqF1Kx7b
— Kansas Soccer (@KUWSoccer) October 24, 2025

Watts said the opportunity in front of the wide-open net was so easy that she actually started to panic about blowing it. But by the time the panic set in, the ball was already in the net.

“I mean, the goal was so open. All I had to do was tap it in. It was to the point where it was so easy that I thought I might somehow miss it. That was going through my head when the ball went into the net.”

She’ll take that one and any others like it in the weeks to come. But there are two goals from her long career that standout as her favorites.

The first came in high school, when she was a freshman playing on the 2^nd team for Sporting Blue Valley and got called up to the 1^st team before a travel match in Texas.

“We played a really good team. I didn’t start, but I came off the bench and literally 15 seconds in I scored. On my first touch. That was such a big moment for me. I was decent at the time, but getting that goal on that team was just awesome.”

Her second favorite “cool goal” came during her freshman year at KU.

“We played Iowa State to go to the Big 12 tournament and I scored a banger, upper-90 (top righthand corner) from outside the box. I had started with the ball at midfield, dribbled it up, beat someone, beat another person and then hit it. That was definitely one of my favorites.”

“I think I’d always rather have a cool goal, but at the end of the day a goal’s a goal and it doesn’t matter how you get them. If I get past 9, that’s all I care about with my goals and then, of course, I want to win as much as we can as a team.”