⚽️ Kansas Plays West Virginia to a Draw on Friday Night

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The Kansas Soccer team played to a 2-2 draw at West Virginia on Friday evening at Dick Dlesk Soccer Stadium. Rylan Childers and Shira Elinav scored the two goals for the Jayhawks. 

Kansas was able to capitalize first on its opportunities Friday. One of those opportunities came in the 59th minute as junior defender Mackenzie Boeve stole the ball from the Mountaineers and sent it ahead to junior forward Shira Elinav. Elinav then crossed the ball into the box, where freshman forward Lexi Watts got the ball over to super-senior midfielder Rylan Childers who was able to tap the ball into the back of the net. The goal was Childers’ fifth of the season and her 33rd career goal. 

Shortly after, in the 60th minute, Elinav was able to score a goal of her own. Freshman forward Lexi Watts was able to step in front of a Mountaineer to steal the ball. Watts then passed a through ball to Elinav, who chased the ball down and put it over the goalkeeper, off the crossbar and into the back of the net. Elinav’s goal was her sixth of the season and she collected three points for the match off an assist and a goal. 

West Virginia was able to get on the board in the 62nd minute by junior AJ Rodriguez, who scored her second goal of the season. The Mountaineers were able to tie the Jayhawks in the 75th minute, when Maya McCutcheon scored her sixth career goal. 

“If you’d told me before the game, we’d get a tie out of this, I probably would have been okay with that,” Head Coach Mark Francis said. “When you’re up 2-0, it doesn’t matter who you’re playing, you shouldn’t allow the opponent to come back in. I’m disappointed that both the goals were off set pieces, which we worked on a lot. I thought we dominated it and unfortunately let them back in.”

Senior goalkeeper Melania Pasar surpassed her single-match career high with eight saves, topping her previous high of seven set at Iowa earlier this season. 

During the match, Kansas super-senior Kaela Hansen established a new school record for minutes played. Hansen, who played all 90 minutes in the contest, has now played in 7,689 career minutes, surpassing the previous mark of 7,630 minutes played by Addisyn Merrick as a Jayhawk from 2016-19. 

Following the draw, the Jayhawks are now 7-5-1 on the year and 0-2-1 in Big 12 play. West Virginia moves to 4-3-5 on the year and 1-0-2 in conference play.

Kansas will continue its three-game road trip by traveling to Baylor (Oct. 6) and Texas (Oct. 9). The match at Baylor will be broadcast on Big 12 NOW on ESPN+, while the game at Texas will be available on Longhorn Network.