The Kansas soccer team spent more than 57 minutes down a player on Thursday night, but still outshot Oklahoma State 13-5 and took down the Cowgirls 1-0 at Neal Patterson Stadium in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Junior defender Caroline Castans’ well-placed strike in the 56th minute gave KU all it needed to claim its first victory in Stillwater since 2004 and start its conference slate strong.
“Winning games is really hard,” KU coach Nate Lie said postgame in a video posted on social media. “Winning games in conference makes it harder. Winning conference games on the road is about the hardest thing you can do.”
Freshman forward Jordan Rowan was sent off in the 33rd minute. She tried to slide in to reclaim possession of a loose ball but, with OSU defender Ellie Geoffroy shielding the ball, Rowan ended up sliding in dangerously and hitting OSU goalkeeper Logan Marks in the face with her cleat. After review, Rowan’s yellow card was changed to red, and Marks exited the game and was replaced by Murphy Sheaff.
“Unfortunate for Jordy, she was trying to make a play, slipped, and I hope the Oklahoma State goalkeeper’s OK,” Lie said.
The effort that KU put in with Rowan absent, Lie said, made the victory “even more special.” (It was KU’s first win in which a Jayhawk was sent off since 2016.)
“It was a great game for our players,” he said. “Total credit to the entire team, every player who touched the field, every player on the bench. It took a program effort to make it to the finish line, to just keep fighting and trying to dictate. The thing I’m most proud of is that being short for 57-odd minutes, we still tried to dictate the game to the best of our ability.”
KU, ranked No. 12 in the TopDrawerSoccer poll and No. 19 by the United Soccer coaches this week, had forced a couple of early saves by Marks, including a leaping effort on a 24th-minute attempt by Livvy Moore, prior to her early exit. The final minutes of the first half featured a pair of corner kicks for OSU that amounted to nothing.
Sheaff cleaned up a light header by Kate Langfelder and grabbed an attempted cross that went down as Lexi Watts’ only shot of the match, but less than a minute later Watts sent in another cross and OSU’s Emmy Hedden only hit it lightly out of the box. The ball dribbled past Moore and to Castans, whose curling effort beat Sheaff and broke the deadlock.
KU goalkeeper Sophie Dawe was not called upon much on Thursday, despite KU’s numbers advantage. In the 82nd minute, OSU’s Laudan Wilson wound up from outside the box and squeezed a shot between Moore and Langfelder, but Dawe grabbed it. That was the last attempt by either team, and Dawe’s only save of the match as she kept a clean sheet.
Castans and Moore led all players with three shots each; Castans was the only player with two on target.
KU improved to 7-0-2 on the year, which is its longest-ever unbeaten streak to start a season, and will continue its early efforts in Big 12 play back home at Rock Chalk Park on Thursday when it hosts Baylor at 6 p.m. That will be the Jayhawks’ first home match of September.
