Monica Brothers remembers walking off the field following Kansas University’s double-overtime loss to Missouri two years ago in the Big 12 Conference soccer tournament.
Brothers was just a freshman then, and her season ended a week later with a first-round loss to Brigham Young in the NCAA Tournament. Last year, KU’s season ended in the opening round of the Big 12 tourney with a loss to Nebraska.
Now Brothers and the No. 21-ranked Jayhawks are ready to collect that elusive first postseason victory. They’ll have the opportunity at 7:30 tonight when they meet Oklahoma at Blossom Soccer Stadium in San Antonio.
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I just feel like we weren’t ready to advance (in the past),” Brothers said. “This year it’s different. The morale is different. Everyone’s excited. We can beat any team in the conference, and that’s exactly what we’re ready to do.”
Amy Geha, another junior, believes one win in the Big 12 tournament won’t be good enough.
“Obviously, we can compete with these top teams,” Geha said. “Texas A&M was ranked third and Colorado’s ranked fifth. If we can compete with them, then we can compete with anybody.”
Kansas forged a 1-1 tie with A&M and bowed to Colorado, 2-1.
Kansas, the No. 3 seed in the tourney, clipped the sixth-seeded Sooners, 3-1, two weeks ago at SuperTarget Field.
“Last time we possessed the ball really well for three quarters of the field,” KU coach Mark Francis said, “but in the attacking third our final ball sometimes wasn’t great. Some of our crosses were a little too close to the keeper, so we probably weren’t as productive as we could have been.”
The demand for more production could spell a big day for All-Big 12 forward Caroline Smith, the conference’s leading scorer. Smith has been hot lately. Of her 18 goals, seven have come in the last seven games. Kansas has lost just once when Smith has scored.
“I really think that the team’s playing well and the team’s good enough, and the conference is tight this year,” Francis said. “I think anybody that’s there can win it, and I think that there’s no reason why we couldn’t go win it. I think if we go there and we play well, anything can happen.”
Today’s four winners will play in Friday’s semifinals. The championship game will be Sunday afternoon.
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