Kansas midfielder Jillian Gregorski knows consistency is important because she learned it “kind of the hard way” in 2024.
As a freshman, Gregorski ranked second on KU’s roster with eight goals, beginning with the very first of the Jayhawks’ season and concluding with three across the first two games of their late-season eight-match winning streak. The goal-scoring earned her a significant place on an ultimately successful team in her first collegiate season out of the Westminster School in Connecticut.
But there were some games, Gregorski recalled on Monday, that were challenging for her — though didn’t mention specific matches by name. She did have a few in which she was held without a shot, let alone a goal, such as KU’s dramatic Big 12 tournament victories against Texas Tech and TCU, in which she played a combined 133 minutes.
Gregorski has a plan for building consistency going forward into the 2025 season.
“I think I kind of go into every game just knowing what I want to do and having things to fall back on if my touches aren’t great, my passes aren’t great, I missed a shot, but I can have things I can fall back on, like completing a first pass and stuff,” she said. “Because I know consistency is so important.”
When you are in fact consistent, Gregorski said, you see “little successes,” followed by big ones — “and then you’ll see more playing time, or you’ll see just having more fun and just being more together as a team.”
And for KU this upcoming season, a more consistent Gregorski could make for a more potent Jayhawk lineup. Head coach Nate Lie said Gregorski and redshirt junior forward Saige Wimes, the two players who spoke to reporters on Monday, “will have a lot to say about our attack this year and how many goals we could score and how dangerous we can be.” Wimes and senior Lexi Watts earned preseason all-league selections, as they have served as two of the driving forces behind KU’s high-pressure play style.
“That is an exciting thing about our program right now, is we return a lot of firepower,” Lie said. “I would be very disappointed if we don’t score more goals this year. I’d be very disappointed if we aren’t considered a dangerous team.”
A native of Wethersfield, Conn., Gregorski was originally signed to Lie and his staff at Xavier before they made the leap to KU. She was one of a couple freshmen to follow him there, and soon made an immediate impact with that season-opening goal in a 2-1 victory over South Dakota State.
Her first career start came in an early-season home match against in-state NAIA school Friends University, in which she ended up becoming the second freshman in KU history to score a hat trick, and the first since 2001. From then on, she started every game she played.
Gregorski was on the field for 67 minutes in the fateful game against TCU that earned the Jayhawks a Big 12 title; she also played 65 as KU was eliminated from the NCAA Tournament by Saint Louis less than a week later, and her attempt on goal with eight minutes remaining was as close as the Jayhawks got to an equalizer as they ultimately lost 1-0.
Gregorski said the way the season ended has fueled her and her teammates since.
“I did not want to lose like that, thought we had so much more in us, so much more to play for, and obviously at some point your season’s going to come to an end,” Gregorski said. “I wasn’t ready for it to come to an end there, but I think having something to just motivate you day in and day out has been really helpful for me — and I think the team, because the team did not want to end it like that either.”
She also said she has attempted to develop into more of a leader in her second year in the program.
“I think that makes us a really good team, is when everyone feels they can lead in their own way,” she said, “you don’t have to have the captain band.”
KU’s quest to take its season one step further, while fielding many of the same players, begins on Thursday at 7 p.m. against Missouri State. The Bears are a familiar foe for the Jayhawks, as a team they battled during their spring exhibition schedule.
“I think it definitely gives us a little bit of an advantage because we know pretty much their system, their style of play,” Wimes said. “I’m excited to play them again. I think they’re a good team. They always give us their best shot.”
