photo by: Kansas Athletics

Kansas midfielder Caroline Castans lines up a kick against Duke on Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025, in Durham, N.C.

A memorable season for the Kansas soccer team fell short of history, as the third-seeded Jayhawks lost 2-0 at No. 2 seed Duke on Sunday afternoon at Koskinen Stadium.

In just the second season at the helm for head coach Nate Lie, KU had become the third team in school history to reach the Sweet 16, but the Jayhawks couldn’t quite knock off the Blue Devils to make it where the program never had before.

Instead, Duke’s Mia Minestrella put her team ahead shortly after halftime, and Kat Rader added an insurance goal immediately after the break on the rebound off her own penalty kick to set the final margin at 2-0.

The Jayhawks couldn’t make anything of seven first-half corner kicks, including one that produced a threatening header by Emily Tobin, and were held to just three shots after halftime.

Senior Lexi Watts was the only KU player with two shots, including one of the Jayhawks’ two shots on goal, in her final match. Dawe made three saves, one of which was diving to her left to save Rader’s penalty before she had to watch the Duke forward tap it back in anyway.

Duke midfielder Devin Lynch had drawn the penalty when she beat KU defender Jordan Fjelstad to a ball in the box and then tumbled to the ground, seemingly tripped up by Fjelstad’s left foot. Rader’s ensuing goal came less than two minutes out of the halftime break.

Minestrella’s goal in the first half had featured a more elegant buildup. Avery Oder worked her way past Lydia Viets on the left wing and sent the ball into the middle. KU wasn’t able to clear it adequately, and Rader tracked it down and tapped the ball out to Minestrella. Her shot was fairly light, but an off-balance Sophie Dawe couldn’t track it down as it rolled into the back of the net for her fifth goal of the NCAA Tournament.

That all came shortly after Dawe had denied Oder on a breakaway, and Rader too not long afterward. Rader finished with five shots on the match, and Minestrella, Oder and Mia Oliaro had two apiece.

The Jayhawks nearly changed the match in the final seconds of the first half with an equalizer. Caroline Castans got the ball back from Jocelyn Herrema off a throw-in and lofted a ball over the entire Duke defense to Kate Langfelder, but the sophomore midfielde’rs one-touch left-footed attempt sailed high.

KU put two shots on goal in the final 15 minutes to force Caroline Dysart’s only two saves. One was a right-footed attempt from Castans that Dysart swallowed up. The other came on a long individual run by Watts, but it didn’t get high enough off the ground to challenge the keeper.

The Jayhawks finished Lie’s sophomore campaign at 16-6-3 with the loss in the third round of the NCAA Tournament. KU didn’t claim a Big 12 tournament championship like it had in 2024 — the Jayhawks lost 1-0 to BYU in the title game this time — but it qualified for the postseason as an at-large No. 3 seed and beat Cal Baptist and Louisville before falling to the Blue Devils, advancing two rounds further than it did the previous season.

KU can return the vast majority of its roster for next season. The most notable players who went through senior-night festivities were Watts and Saige Wimes, the pair of stalwart forwards who have helped fuel the press that has become the Jayhawks’ signature under Lie; KU is also expected to lose starting midfielder Emika Kawagishi, rotational midfielder Mackenzie Hammontree and reserve defender Emily Minard. But the rest of the Jayhawks’ lineup could remain intact, pending movement in the transfer portal.