Los Angeles ? This wasn’t how Holly Gault expected her freshman season on Kansas University’s soccer team to turn out.

She knew she was joining a team that had a long way to go, but she didn’t think it would go so far, so fast. She certainly didn’t anticipate a run to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Women’s Soccer Tournament.

“I knew this program was on the rise, but I didn’t think it was going to happen as soon as my freshman year,” said Gault, a Spring Hill native. “I’m so excited. I’ve got three more years of this left.”

No. 16 Kansas (18-5-1) will play the biggest game in the program’s nine-year history at 9 p.m. tonight against No. 2-ranked UCLA (18-1-3) at Drake Stadium. No Kansas soccer squad has been ranked so high, won so many games or gone this far in postseason play.

More than 300 Kansas fans made the trip Sunday to Columbia, Mo., when the Jayhawks blanked Missouri 2-0 in the second round. Another large group of KU fans is expected here. In addition to traveling families and fans, the Jayhawks hope to see plenty of West Coast alumni and friends in the stands tonight.

Back at home, the Jayhawks have a growing base of fans, including members of the KU women’s soccer club, a nonvarsity team.

Katie Halpin, an Overland Park sophomore who plays on the club team, is roommates with Monica Brothers, a varsity forward from Leavenworth. The two have played soccer together in Kansas City since they were young and are still supportive of each other during college-level play.

“It’s awesome,” Halpin said, of the varsity team’s success. “Just the fact that they are going to be able to play means they are starting to get their name out there. It will really help them with recruiting.”

The smaller crowds are part of what attracts Scott Mayo, a 20-year-old Kansas University junior who has gone to five or six games this fall.

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“It’s less crowded, and you feel more like you’re right in there with them,” he said. “With Allen Fieldhouse and basketball, there are all these thousands of people, but with soccer, we know they can hear us getting into it and trying to help start them up.”

The Jayhawks have never felt so much support on the road, said All-Big 12 goalkeeper Meghan Miller, a junior from Seattle.

“It’s just catching on,” she said. “It’s hard not to want to be a part of this. We’ve done so many great things as a program. You look at us from a soccer standpoint and, yeah, we’ve done a lot of great things, but we’ve done a lot of things academically, stuff like that. We’re not just a soccer team, it’s a complete program.”

The tournament victories and the loyal following on the road are the latest steps in coach Mark Francis’ plan to turn Kansas into a national soccer power. He inherited a program that was the Big 12 Conference doormat, and in just five years he has put KU soccer in the national spotlight.

A victory tonight would put the Jayhawks on the doorstep of the College Cup, soccer’s Final Four.

“One of the goals that we set at the beginning of the year was to make it to the Elite Eight,” Francis said, “and we’re a game away from doing that.”

Staff writer Katie Nelson contributed to this report.