Coach Mark Francis’ decision to put his Kansas University soccer squad through a hard nonconference schedule finally seems to be paying off down the stretch of Big 12 Conference play.

The Jayhawks put up their second largest point total of the season in a 3-1 victory Friday over Nebraska at the Jayhawk Soccer Complex.

“I think it’s been a collective effort by the whole team in kind of leading each other,” Kansas junior Sara Rogers said. “The juniors and seniors got together a couple of weeks ago since the season hadn’t gone as well as we wanted, but we knew we could turn it around. We decided that we really needed to step up and kind of support our younger players a little better to hopefully get some wins.”

Kansas has scored 15 points in its eight conference games after having scored just five goals in 10 nonconference games.

As a result, KU has lost only one of its last seven games, with two other games ending in a tie.

“We’re finally scoring goals, and that makes a difference,” Francis said. “The thing is, we’ve got different people scoring goals. I knew this year, in terms of our offense, it was going to be by committee, and it wasn’t going to be one person that we were going to rely on.”

After many missed opportunities, Rogers finally scored in the 23rd minute.

Sophomore Kim Boyer and senior Nicole Cauzillo set up the attack, and Rogers finished the play by beating the goalkeeper one-on-one for her first of two goals on the day.

“It’s just awesome when somebody can come off of the bench and make that big of an impact,” Cauzillo said of Rogers. “That’s what our team is all about. We have such a deep team, and anyone can start on any given day. It just brings a lot of excitement when someone off the bench scores.”

Kansas maintained its momentum coming out of the break thanks to Cauzillo.

Fifteen minutes into the second half, Cauzillo booted a 40-yard shot that soared over the goalkeeper.

“I just took a touch and saw the keeper was off her line, and I just went for it,” the senior midfielder said. “I’ve been doing a lot of shooting individually with my coach, so she was really proud. (Assistant coach) Kara Lowery has been doing a lot of work with me.”

Five minutes later, Rogers picked up her second goal of the season to record her first career two-goal game. This time it was sophomore Monica Dolinsky and junior Jessica Bush who set up Rogers for the team’s third goal.

The goals by Cauzillo and Rogers were Kansas’ only two shots on goal in the second half.

Francis was quick to point out a flaw when his team gave up a goal with less than three minutes remaining.

“I’m obviously happy about the win, but I’m a bit disappointed that we gave up that goal in the end,” said Francis, whose squad had pitched shutouts in its two previous games. “It would have been nice to have another shutout. I thought we defended really well except for in the last 15 minutes, to be honest.”

The Jayhawks can clinch a spot in the Big 12 Conference tournament with either a win or tie against Iowa State on Sunday, or with a loss or tie by Oklahoma, which plays host to Texas on Sunday.