Kansas, off to its best soccer start in school history, had a chance over the weekend to make more history.
But the Jayhawks, who recently had been receiving top 25 votes in two national polls, couldn’t overcome their foes from the Lone Star state falling, 2-0, to No. 12 Texas on Sunday, two days after losing, 4-0, to No. 17 Texas A&M. Both games were at KU’s SuperTarget Field.
“The players are frustrated to know that we are so close,” said KU coach Mark Francis of the Jayhawks, who are 4-17-2 all time against teams from Texas. “If we could have played a 90-minute game today like we did for 70 minutes it might have been different.”
Texas (9-3) only needed 10 minutes Sunday to take an insurmountable lead over the Jayhawks (9-5) as the Longhorns slipped two goals past KU goalie Meghan Miller.
“This is very disappointing,” said KU senior Hilla Rantala, the Jayhawks’ leading scorer. “This is my senior season and we had a chance to be ranked in the polls, but it looks like that won’t happen now.”
Texas’ Kylee Wosnuk booted in a close shot in the fifth minute after wrestling the ball away from a slew of Jayhawk defenders inside the goalie box.
Less than five minutes later, UT again scored. Kelly McDonald connected on a strong right cross after getting an assist from Kelly Wilson.
“We made two mistakes and they scored,” Francis said. “When you play good teams you can’t have mental mistakes, because they’ll punish you. In every single game we’ve lost, we haven’t been outplayed by the competition, but we’ve made costly mistakes.”
UT outshot KU 7-4 in the first half.
The Jayhawks had chances to score. After Miller made a terrific stop against Wilson on a one-on-one situation, KU had a solo chance of its own. But Brooke Jones dribbled in too far and Texas goalie Shay Wilkerson was able to fall on the ball.
Natalie Hoogveld, KU’s top career scorer, had a chance to improve on her seven goals this season with just over 15 minutes remaining in the first half. But the senior blasted a deflected corner kick over the UT goal.
Things remained the same most of the second half as KU shared control with Texas and narrowly escaped a couple of dead-on Longhorn scoring chances. UT’s Kati McBain’s rebound header bounced off the cross bar after another Texas player’s long shot bounced off the bar.
In the final minutes, the Jayhawks missed on what was their best scoring chance. Hoogveld lobbed a perfect cross-field touch pass to freshman Monica Brothers who tapped it with her head, but a diving Wilkerson made the save.
“Today we missed on several scoring chances that we’ve been scoring on all season,” Francis said. “But the one thing I learned from this weekend is when we play like were capable of, we can play with anyone.”
The Jayhawks will play Tuesday against Drury in a make-up game at 3 p.m. at SuperTarget Field.
“We have to move on,” Rantala said. “But I really hope we get a chance to play these two teams again in the Big 12 tournament.”
