Members of the Kansas soccer team, from left, Estelle Johnson, Missy Geha and Jessica Bush talk about the upcoming season during Wednesday's media day.

There were times last season when the goal looked as tiny as a thimble for the Kansas University women’s soccer team. Eight times, to be exact.

That was the number of games in which KU failed to record a score, with players stumbling through their first losing season (7-10-4) since they arrived at KU.

But coach Mark Francis is convinced 2007 was nothing more than an anomaly. And he thinks the goalmouth should appear considerably larger in 2008.

“Offensively, by far this is a much better unit than we had last year,” Francis said Wednesday at KU’s Olympic sports media day. “We just have more options.”

Two of those options come in the form of decorated rookies.

Red-shirt freshman Emily Cressy and true freshman Kortney Clifton are expected to fill the goal-scoring void almost immediately for a team that averaged just 1.1 goals per game last year.

They’ll get their first opportunities to do so Friday evening. Kansas takes on No. 24-ranked Purdue University at 5 p.m. at the Jayhawk Soccer Complex in the season opener for both teams.

Cressy already has demonstrated her knack for finding the net, scoring two goals in KU’s 3-0 exhibition victory against Drake University on Saturday. Clifton enters her first collegiate season as a four-time first-team all-state selection at Andover High. She holds the state’s career (256 goals) and single-season (80 goals) prep scoring records.

Defender Estelle Johnson, a junior, said finally having multiple scoring threats would change the team’s mentality in games.

“It’s much different,” she said. “If we did happen to get scored on (last year), we would be like, ‘Oh shoot. What are we going to do now?’ But I think this year will be a lot more relaxed because we do have speed and everything up top.”