photo by: Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World

The KU women's soccer team celebrates with fans after its victory over Missouri State on Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025, at Rock Chalk Park in Lawrence.

Nate Lie’s favorite memory as a college soccer player is of a game he lost.

Lie played collegiately for Miami (Ohio), and the Redhawks welcomed then-unbeaten Indiana to their home field in 1997. Miami lost, but as Lie recalls now, the team went toe to toe with the Hoosiers for 90 minutes.

“If you’re around my friends and you say, ‘What’s your favorite game?’, it’s probably that one,” Lie said. “Because we looked the best team in the country straight in the eye and said ‘Let’s go.’ We felt like for that given amount of minutes, we were on par with them.”

Now coaching the Kansas women’s soccer team, Lie has the opportunity to go up against the best once again. In a one-off match set for Thursday at 7 p.m., Florida State — No. 2 as ranked by TopDrawerSoccer, but what Lie says is “pound for pound the best team in the country” — is coming to Rock Chalk Park to face the Jayhawks.

“It is tricky when, if you play this game 10 times, you’re not winning five,” Lie said. “That’s OK, that’s OK. It’s something we can’t run from, it’s something that shouldn’t demotivate us, because it’s not going to be zero either. And we have to lean into that one, two, three, whatever it may be.

“The only way that we give ourselves a chance is that we have to believe. We have to be willing to sacrifice and go deeper than them. The shared suffering has to be something that doesn’t scare us.”

KU enters at 3-0-1 but having dropped out of the national rankings following a scoreless draw at Utah State on Sunday. FSU, meanwhile, is 2-0-0 and has not played since beating Florida International on Aug. 17.

The Seminoles, who won national titles in 2014, 2018, 2021 and 2023, feature a trio of preseason All-Americans (as assessed by TopDrawerSoccer), all three of whom were part of the United States women’s under-20 national team that won bronze at its World Cup last year.

Junior forward Jordynn Dudley (first team) tallied nine goals and 11 assists for FSU last season. Midfielder Yuna McCormack (second team) transferred in from Virginia, and defender Heather Gilchrist (third team) is a longtime fixture of the Seminoles’ back line who scored the first two goals of FSU’s season against Florida on Aug. 14 — she previously had one goal in her three-year career.

FSU has used three goalkeepers in its two matches, as two freshmen have shared time with returning starter Addie Todd, a redshirt sophomore. Other key returning contributors include defenders Sophia Nguyen and Mimi Van Zanten, defender/forward Kameron Simmonds and forwards Wrianna Hudson and Solai Washington. Besides McCormack, the Seminoles also added defender Janet Okeke from N.C. State, and she has played the second-most minutes on the team through two matches.

“I think they’re certainly the most fully stocked (team) in an attacking capacity,” Lie said. “They’re pedigreed, they’re probably the deepest team they’ve had this year, and so we can’t treat this game like every other game in certain ways, and then on the flip side, you have to try to — our process is going to be exactly the same.”

Lie, his staff and his players have to find the balance between maintaining their standard approach to any game week and understanding the distinct challenge they face.

“I think when we’re on the field, you just kind of look to your teammates to the left and right, just be there for them, stay on the same page, kind of just stay focused, locked in,” goalkeeper Sophie Dawe said.

Added defender Caroline Castans: “Playing a team that’s going to give you their all and be a very competitive match, I think honestly helps keep you focused and keep you motivated.”

Lie has placed an emphasis early this season on protecting the Jayhawks’ home field, which they did quite effectively earlier in August with three straight wins against Missouri State, South Dakota State and Utah Valley. KU Athletics is promoting Thursday’s match as an opportunity for fans to “pack the park” with the Seminoles coming to town.

“It’s always fun when our supporters are out there, especially on a Thursday night game under the lights,” Castans said. “It’s a really fun experience.”

Lie cautioned, though, that he doesn’t want fan support to be a “one-off” and that he knows the match will already feel different for his players “when we line up and we look across the field.”

“I do want them to understand you only have so many shots at games like this,” he said. “Me as a coach, if you could pull off something like this, it’s one you’ll remember for a long time. The few opponents that we’ve played that had kind of this weight behind them, I remember coaching against them and what it felt like for 90 minutes.”

He said that advancing deep into the NCAA Tournament, as KU aspires to do at some point, will also mean inevitably running into a team like FSU.

“You don’t want it to be a shock to your system,” Lie said. “You want to see what it feels like, to maybe see whatever gaps we might have to fill, but you also want to understand it’s not insurmountable in the slightest bit. These are games that we should win at some point, sooner than later, or at least be able to go toe to toe and believe you can win.”