A lack of offense continues to plague the Kansas University soccer squad and continues to frustrate coach Mark Francis.

Kansas, coming off its first victory of the season, didn’t carry over any momentum in its 2-1 loss to No. 25-ranked Illinois on Friday at the Jayhawk Soccer Complex.

“It was one of our better performances in terms of how we played, but I felt both of their goals were soft on us,” Francis said. “The mistakes by us, they punished us for. Right now, we’re not punishing other people when they make mistakes. And they made some today. You’ve got to score goals to win games.”

KU senior Nicole Cauzillo scored a goal for the Jayhawks (1-6-1) in the final 10 minutes on Illinois’ backup goalkeeper.

Fellow senior Emily Strinden sent a perfect pass across the front of the net to Cauzillo, who was positioned at the back post.

“It was a great ball. It landed right on my foot, so I just had to finish it,” Cauzillo said. “I was just kind of a little bit surprised that it landed right there. So I give her all the credit for that goal, and I just put it in.”

The goal was Cauzillo’s first since 2004, her first year with KU, and just the third goal scored by Kansas this season.

Kansas otherwise had trouble making clean passes to set up shots. The end result just four shots on goal for KU. Cauzillo’s goal was the only attempt in the second half.

“Our final ball has got to be better,” Francis said. “We do really well on the build up, but when we get to the attacking third, and that final pass that’s going to slide in on the cross is not good enough. We’re hitting it right at the defender too many times instead of in the seams.”

Illinois, the third ranked opponent KU has faced this season, scored the game’s first goal with less than four minutes remaining in the first half.

After Kansas goalkeeper Colleen Quinn left the net to contest a pass on the backside, the ball quickly was passed to the front of the goal and was headed in.

No more than 10 minutes into the second half, Illinois scored again when the Fighting Illini’s Chichi Nweke beat Quinn one-on-one at the front of the box.

Julie Hanley, KU’s starting goalkeeper all last year, saw her first action of the season. Hanley replaced Quinn for the final 27 minutes of the contest and had one save.

“We were down 2-0 and I thought we needed to give her a run and see what she could do,” Francis said. “She did all right.”

The Jayhawks will face yet another ranked opponent at 1 p.m. Sunday, when they play host to No. 19 California.

“They’ll be as good, if not better than, Illinois,” Francis said. “I haven’t seen them play this year, but they’re going to be a quality team. I think we’re playing a lot of quality teams, so it’s getting us ready for the conference.

“I think we need to win that game just to give us some confidence because right now we’ve got to keep believing we can get it done.”