photo by: Mike Gunnoe/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas midfielder Makayla Merlo places Kansas as the winner against TCU during the Big 12 tournament final at CPKC Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024 in Kansas City, Mo.

Despite its strong form to close the season, the Kansas soccer team still has to go on the road to open the NCAA Tournament.

KU is unseeded and will face No. 8 seed Saint Louis (14-1-6) this weekend, at a date and time to be announced.

The Billikens captured regular-season and tournament titles for the Atlantic 10 Conference, led by the league’s Offensive Player of the Year Emily Gaebe (15 goals, four assists this season) and Defensive Player of the Year Lyndsey Heckel, and have not lost a match since hosting Penn State on Sept. 1.

The Jayhawks, for their part, enter the tournament on a tear, now boasting an eight-match winning streak for the first time in a decade after beating the Nos. 3, 2 and 1 seeds consecutively in their last three games at the Big 12 tournament.

With one victory over Arizona State already under its belt, KU’s heroics in CPKC Stadium included a second-overtime golden goal by Lexi Watts against West Virginia in the quarterfinals and a pair of set-piece goals against the stingy Texas Tech defense in the semis.

Then Makayla Merlo scored her first goal as a Jayhawk on the decisive penalty in the championship, and Sophie Dawe held on for a clean sheet against No. 7 TCU to seal the deal.

KU could certainly have made the tournament without beating the Horned Frogs, but the marquee victory and automatic bid undoubtedly helped its positioning ahead of Monday.

This is KU’s first trip to the tournament since 2019, when it hosted and defeated Iowa in the first round. The Jayhawks then went on to defeat Xavier — a team coached by Lie, who had just given the program its first-ever NCAA victory — before losing at South Carolina in the third round.

Of note, while it has won neutral matchups, KU has not defeated a program at its own home stadium in the NCAA Tournament since it beat Missouri in 2003. If the Jayhawks win this weekend they will advance to play the second and third rounds in the span of the following weekend, possibly at No. 1 USC if the Trojans beat unseeded Sacramento State. The rest of KU’s portion of the bracket includes No. 5 Wisconsin, Maine, Princeton and No. 4 Virginia.

KU leads the all-time series against SLU 5-1-1, including a double-overtime victory for the Jayhawks in Lawrence in the 2018 NCAA Tournament. The Jayhawks and Billikens have faced one common opponent this year, as both drew at home against BYU.