photo by: Arun Halder/Kansas Athletics

The Kansas soccer team gathers during a spring game against Central Missouri on Thursday, April 3, 2025, in Lawrence.

The Kansas soccer team was quite an enigma entering the 2024 season.

The Jayhawks’ roster at the time was a patchwork composed of select returners from a team that won one Big 12 game in 2023, double-digit freshmen compiled from classes assembled by two separate head coaches and a select few transfers — all working under a new coaching staff that had seen great success in the Big East with its high-pressure play style, but still had to prove its worth on the field.

When KU’s coaches would talk to recruits, head coach Nate Lie recalled, “we were referring back to some success we had at a different school or trying to sell them on a vision of what we’re doing here.”

“It’s easier when they walk into this office and they see a trophy,” he said on Wednesday in an interview with the Journal-World.

The Jayhawks, picked to tie for 12th in their conference prior to the season, did take some time to jell. Lie had even said prior to the season he was telling recruits he’d “make a strong bet that we’re much, much, much better in games 10 to 20.” Indeed, beginning around game 15, KU demonstrated precisely what its coaches’ vision looked like when borne out on the field. In early October, KU embarked on an eight-game winning streak that saw the Jayhawks first rise through the league standings and then win the Big 12 tournament as a No. 6 seed.

Just two of the Jayhawks’ 11 starters from their 1-0 victory over TCU in the tournament final, and three of the 17 total players who saw the field in that game, exhausted their eligibility. The result is a 2025 roster that pending unexpected losses in the transfer portal (which opened on Thursday) will look quite similar to last year’s memorable group, but which won’t be treated remotely similarly by opponents, given the success KU has already had.

“I think it’s something I’m always going to be saying to the team and they’re not going to get it until we — we’re probably going to have to learn the hard way,” Lie said. “That’s our job, is to try not to have that happen. But some of that is inevitable.”

He said the Jayhawks were probably overlooked last season and, while they don’t yet hold the elite image of programs like TCU, Texas Tech or BYU, certainly will get the best shot from everyone they face, and particularly teams they took down last year.

“We have to understand that we beat a few teams that are probably on paper more talented than us, and it’s because of all these little things that we stacked on top of each other,” he said. “You can’t forget those. You can’t take them as givens. You have to reinvest in those every day.

“And that’s something we really tried to do during the spring, and it’s easier said than done. We’re only going to win some games if we’re the hungrier team, the more selfless team, and that’s a little bit more challenging to do coming off a certain level of success.”

Reflecting on recent practices, newly concluded with an exhibition at Missouri on Saturday in which he said KU played its best match of the spring, Lie was pleased. He said that with so much built-in familiarity and continuity, KU didn’t have to spend as much time instilling fundamentals and could move more quickly. It made for a “refreshingly steady” overall experience.

One element of newness, though — or more precisely, three — helped the Jayhawks maintain the sense of “that urgency and that hunger” in the wake of last season’s success: the arrival of two early-enrolling freshmen and one accomplished transfer.

Lie said he was happy with the complementary skill sets provided by former Oregon midfielder Livvy Moore, freshman forward Faith Johnston and freshman midfielder Marit McLaughlin.

“So not only are they hopefully good players, their strengths aren’t necessarily the strengths of the existing team,” he said.

Moore arrives in Lawrence as a redshirt junior who had started for much of her time with the Ducks and served as a captain. Lie said that the Jayhawks’ performance in 2024 had been persuasive for Moore in the portal, as she was looking to compete for championships and in the NCAA Tournament.

From “practice one, minute three,” Lie said, it was clear Moore would bring “a level of probably talent and versatility in the final third that we don’t have a ton of.” He praised her ability to produce “dangerous” shots and crosses with either foot.

“She brings a really professional mentality off the field and as it relates to just, like, standards,” he added. “I don’t think anyone outworks the kid. She’s always wanting to do extra work, she’s always wanting to do extra video, and that’s something we’re continuing to try to build into our culture as just a norm.”

KU still needs to figure out where Moore fits from a positional standpoint, Lie said.

Johnston, who is from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, will take time to adjust to the college level and has work to do off the ball and on defense, but Lie said “her ability in the final third is top-few right away.”

“She can generate power on shots, her shooting has purpose and intentionality, she doesn’t need to be perfectly on balance for it,” he said.

McLaughlin, from Lie’s old recruiting territory in Medina, Ohio, is the clearest example of a player with a distinctive positional fit. While KU has a lot of “6/8 hybrids,” as Lie puts it, essentially players who fall somewhere between a defensive midfielder and a true center midfielder, McLaughlin is a clear-cut holding midfielder who “wants to sit in that pocket in front of the backs, very clean technically, very smart, very good in the air at the club level at least.”

“Those three, not only do they come in ready and were they really quality teammates and really professional about how they went about their business,” Lie said, “I think they also add to the tools at our coaches’ disposal, I’d say.”

They have a lot of tools at this point, between decorated veterans like forwards Lexi Watts and Saige Wimes and defender Caroline Castans, as well as younger players who received significant playing time as freshmen like Jordan Fjelstad, Jillian Gregorski and Kate Langfelder. Lie said he saw incremental improvements from just about everyone over the course of the spring.

“I actually am even more encouraged that a lot of people seem to just be along that path that you’d want to see for young players getting to be more veteran players,” he said, “and then veteran players trending (towards becoming) true difference-makers.”

In the short term, Lie and his staff must now contend with the spring transfer portal. Like every other coaching staff in every other college sport, they are dealing with uncertainty regarding roster limits soon to be imposed under the House v. NCAA settlement, and whether they will be able to temporarily exceed the limit of 28 if existing players are exempted from the new rules. Lie said his team has a “little bit of flexibility with its numbers.”

As for the portal itself, the Jayhawks will look to add a key player or two, Lie said. The window to enter closes on May 15. Then the now-familiar roster will convene again in late summer ahead of the start of the season in early August, with eight newcomers already set to arrive, and nonconference dates yet to be announced.

photo by: Bailey Thompson/Kansas Athletics

Kansas’ Lexi Watts, center, smiles with teammates Faith Johnston, right, and Olivia Page during a spring game against Washburn on Saturday, April 5, 2025, in Lawrence.

photo by: Arun Halder/Kansas Athletics

Kansas’ Jillian Gregorski lines up a shot during a spring game against Central Missouri on Thursday, April 3, 2025, in Lawrence.

photo by: Arun Halder/Kansas Athletics

Kansas’ Caroline Castans looks to make a move during a spring game against Central Missouri on Thursday, April 3, 2025, in Lawrence.

photo by: Arun Halder/Kansas Athletics

Kansas’ Saige Wimes controls the ball during a spring game against Central Missouri on Thursday, April 3, 2025, in Lawrence.

photo by: Arun Halder/Kansas Athletics

Kansas’ Kate Langfelder controls the ball during a spring game against Central Missouri on Thursday, April 3, 2025, in Lawrence.