Surging into the Sweet 16

There’s still more soccer to be played for the Kansas Jayhawks.

The 3rd-seeded KU women’s soccer team advanced to the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 for the third time in program history with a 3-1 win over No. 6 seed Louisville on Thursday afternoon in Durham, N.C.

KU will now played 2nd-seeded Duke, a 1-0 winner over UCF on Thursday, in Sunday’s regional semifinal, with a trip to the Elite Eight on the line.

Kickoff for that one, on Duke’s home field, is slated for 1 p.m. central on ESPN+

On Thursday, KU (16-5-3) fell behind after giving up a goal midway through the first half, but tied the match just before the break on a ripped shot by freshman Faith Johnston, who scored the game-tying goal after a heck of an individual effort by Jocelyn Herrema forced a KU corner kick.

From there, it was all Jayhawks.

KU went ahead on a goal by sophomore Jillian Gregorski late in the second half — her 10th of the season — and put the game out of reach mere minutes later, when senior Lexi Watts got behind the defense for a 1-v-1 against the Louisville keeper that ended up with Watts putting the ball to the left of the goalie and inside the right post.

That goal, which made it 3-1 KU with around 4 minutes to play, was Watts’ 11th of the season, a team best.

Junior captain Caroline Castans assisted on KU’s first two goals, bringing her single-season program assists record to 15 and counting.

There’s history being made with every goal and game for this program, now in just its second season under head coach Nate Lie.

The Jayhawks continue to break new ground, set new standards and prove to the rest of the country that this program is for real.

KU battled in the ultra-tough Big 12 Conference all season and made another run to the Big 12 tournament title game. After winning it last year, they fell to BYU this time around. But that, along with their No. 7 RPI and a schedule that left the battle-tested from start to finish, put the Jayhawks in position to get hot in the postseason, and get hot they have.

KU made quick work of Cal-Baptist in Round 1 back last week in Lawrence. And then showed Louisville, and whoever else was watching, that they’re a team to be reckoned with, both offensively and defensively, with their pressing style, balanced attack and unending tenacity and confidence.

After the match, Lie shared a story about a little added motivation that dropped in the Jayhawks’ laps, and it’s the perfect representation of both why this team is still standing and what helped them get here.

They’re a fun group that plays an exciting brand of soccer and they play for one another, from the newest freshmen who get limited minutes to the very top of the coaching hierarchy and everything in between.

This run, which may still have some time left in it, very much has been a total team effort in every way, and, based on Lie’s words and this team’s grit, you can’t help but get the feeling that this program, under Lie, is still just getting started.

Take Castans, for example. In addition to being one of the best players on this team and in the Big 12 — a player who was on every major national watch list and landed several postseason honors — she truly believes she’s just one cog in the wheel that makes this team go.

“I'm just trying to help our team out the best I can,” Castans said after Thursday’s victory. “I think one of my strengths are my crosses, so I’m just trying to put the ball in dangerous places and my team is doing a great job at finishing them.”

In a world of transfer portal madness, NIL money and college athletics changing right in front of our eyes, it’s teams like these that remind us how special college sports still can be and, quite frankly, watching them battle for all the right reasons is incredibly refreshing in today’s landscape.

There are players on this roster with NIL opportunities, but those are so far from the driving force behind what they do, it’s not even funny. In fact, some of those players who have received more high-profile and lucrative NIL deals have literally laughed at how funny it is, in their minds, that people think they’re a big deal.

They’re soccer players, students, teammates, friends, and, perhaps above all, Jayhawks.

They don’t have so much of a hint of entitlement. They had no problem bussing home nine hours from Waco, Texas, after the Big 12 tournament, instead of flying on a chartered plane, a road trip made necessary because of how far they advanced and the uncertain nature of postseason travel plans.

And they spend most of their time together making sure that they represent themselves and their school in the best way possible.

“We deserve to be here. ... We very, very, very much respect anyone that we’re going to play, but we’re not really intimidated at all, if I’m being honest.”

— KU coach Nate Lie after Thursday's 2nd Round NCAA Tournament win

That starts at the top, but it’s also something that is a part of the fabric of each one of these players, from the stars like Watts, Castans and Gregorski, all the way down to the last player on the bench and the impactful freshman class doing all of this for the first time in their lives.

All are important. Everyone is together. And if this team had an official candy bar, it undoubtedly would be a 3 Musketeers — All for one and one for all!

Here’s the aforementioned story from Lie about the Jayhawks’ added motivation ahead of Thursday’s match…

“We listened to a podcast called ‘College Soccer Nation,’ which (has) really respected coaches. And they talked and previewed this game, and they said that this is when the Big 12 gets found out. And they used Kansas as an example of a team that didn’t even have a chance against Louisville. We were dismissed. I found that pretty tough. We had five top-50 wins this year, Louisville had two.

“I think it’s professional negligence to dismiss a team of this caliber. We deserve to be here. I appreciate it — we played it for our team before the game to tell them what the rest of the country thinks about (us). And what I would just tell you and whoever’s listening, whoever we play, whether it's UCF from our conference or Duke, Duke's one of those teams that can recruit the best 20 players in the country. There's like seven or eight programs (like that). We looked at their wall and saw all the NCAA Tournaments, all the Final Fours, national final — we very, very, very much respect anyone that we’re going to play and we know the caliber at Duke. But we’re not really intimidated at all, if I’m being honest.”

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