His meeting didn’t last very long, though. As soon as the players left the field, the midfield sprinklers at Rock Chalk Park popped up soaking Francis, his staff, and their stat sheets.

It was only the first unfortunate event for Kansas in its 2-1 loss to No. 15 Oklahoma State, Sunday afternoon. After an unbeaten start through eight matches, Kansas has lost two of its last three matches, each against teams boasting a top-20 RPI.

The Jayhawks lost a match where they outshot the Cowgirls by a 15-4 margin in the second half, limited a team that averages 16.6 shots per game to just six on the day, made three saves, and even scored a goal off a corner kick.

“That’s one of those games when you coach our sport for a living where you go, ‘This sucks,'” Francis said. “[Oklahoma State] will sit back and they’ll kind of bide their time but if you have a mental lapse, they will pounce on it and they will punish you.”

To get on the scoreboard, Oklahoma State senior forward Haley Woodard got in the way of a pass at midfield and took off to the net on a breakaway. Three yards ahead of the penalty area, Woodard found time to take a shot that sailed in the top right corner of the net.

Pulling away even further, senior forward Marlo Zoller headed in a free kick served from Kim Rodriguez in the middle of the penalty box, putting the Cowgirls up 2-0. It was Zoller’s sixth goal of the season, tying her for second in the conference, which joins Kansas junior forward Katie McClure.

“The two mistakes we made, the two good opportunities they had, they finished,” Francis said. “Aside from that, we absolutely pummeled them the entire game.”

As the clock winded down, freshman forward Samantha Barnett drew a corner kick as Kansas’ Elise Reina headed to the flag for service. Senior forward Grace Hagan found the ball in the mix and sent the ball into the net for the Jayhawks fourth set piece goal of the season off 48 chances.

With less than 20 seconds on the clock as the ball made its way to midfield, Hagan’s goal came at the wrong time.

“We came on the wrong side of it, but we played our hearts out,” Reina said.

Reina finished the match with an impressive day on all ends of the field. She joined a backline of Madison Meador, Ceri Holland and Kaela Hansen that would break up several of the Cowgirls sprints downfield. Offensively, Reina tallied four shots with one on goal along with her assist on the corner.

“We’re a very offensive minded team when it comes to our outside backs,” Reina said. “It’s good getting forward, getting some crosses off, and especially picking people out in the box. That’s a big thing we practice every day.”

Kansas will play host to unranked Iowa State (2-8-2, 0-1-1 Big 12) at 7 p.m. Saturday.

“We have to learn from this,” Francis said. “Whoever wins the Big 12 this year, I don’t think they’ll going to go through the season without losing a game. The Big 12 is just too tight and I think if we learn from this, and then move forward from it, I think then this is okay.”