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photo by: Kahner Sampson\/Special to the Journal-World<\/p>\n
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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.<\/p>\n
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Nate Lie\u2019s favorite memory as a college soccer player is of a game he lost.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re around my friends and you say, \u2018What\u2019s your favorite game?\u2019, it\u2019s probably that one,\u201d Lie said. \u201cBecause we looked the best team in the country straight in the eye and said \u2018Let\u2019s go.\u2019 We felt like for that given amount of minutes, we were on par with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now coaching the Kansas women\u2019s 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 \u2014 No. 2 as ranked by TopDrawerSoccer, but what Lie says is \u201cpound for pound the best team in the country\u201d \u2014 is coming to Rock Chalk Park to face the Jayhawks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is tricky when, if you play this game 10 times, you\u2019re not winning five,\u201d Lie said. \u201cThat\u2019s OK, that\u2019s OK. It\u2019s something we can\u2019t run from, it\u2019s something that shouldn\u2019t demotivate us, because it\u2019s not going to be zero either. And we have to lean into that one, two, three, whatever it may be. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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\u2019t scare us.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s under-20 national team that won bronze at its World Cup last year. <\/p>\n
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\u2019 back line who scored the first two goals of FSU\u2019s season against Florida on Aug. 14 \u2014 she previously had one goal in her three-year career.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they\u2019re certainly the most fully stocked (team) in an attacking capacity,\u201d Lie said. \u201cThey\u2019re pedigreed, they\u2019re probably the deepest team they\u2019ve had this year, and so we can\u2019t treat this game like every other game in certain ways, and then on the flip side, you have to try to \u2014 our process is going to be exactly the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think when we\u2019re 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,\u201d goalkeeper Sophie Dawe said.<\/p>\n
Added defender Caroline Castans: \u201cPlaying a team that\u2019s going to give you their all and be a very competitive match, I think honestly helps keep you focused and keep you motivated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lie has placed an emphasis early this season on protecting the Jayhawks\u2019 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\u2019s match as an opportunity for fans to \u201cpack the park\u201d with the Seminoles coming to town.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always fun when our supporters are out there, especially on a Thursday night game under the lights,\u201d Castans said. \u201cIt\u2019s a really fun experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lie cautioned, though, that he doesn\u2019t want fan support to be a \u201cone-off\u201d and that he knows the match will already feel different for his players \u201cwhen we line up and we look across the field.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI do want them to understand you only have so many shots at games like this,\u201d he said. \u201cMe as a coach, if you could pull off something like this, it\u2019s one you\u2019ll remember for a long time. The few opponents that we\u2019ve played that had kind of this weight behind them, I remember coaching against them and what it felt like for 90 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t want it to be a shock to your system,\u201d Lie said. \u201cYou want to see what it feels like, to maybe see whatever gaps we might have to fill, but you also want to understand it\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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photo by: Kahner Sampson\/Special to the Journal-World
The KU women’s soccer team celebrates with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,58416,58414,58415,58413,561,82],"class_list":["post-100946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ku-soccer-faces-unique-challenge-with-no-2-florida-state-coming-to-town","tag-ku-soccer-faces-unique-challenge-with-no-2-florida-state-coming-to-townsports","tag-ku-soccer-faces-unique-challenge-with-no-2-florida-state-coming-to-towntop-sports","tag-ku-sports","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}