Caroline Smith, junior forward, fends off Erin Weldon, Iowa State senior defender, during a regular season game last fall. The soccer team is playing its spring exhibition season and won its first game 2-0 against Minnesota on April 2 at Jayhawk Soccer Complex. The next scheduled game is against Purdue on April 23 in Indianapolis.

After an offseason full of awards, the Jayhawk soccer team is back in action with spring exhibition games.

The women kicked off the spring exhibition season with a 2-0 victory against the Minnesota Gophers Saturday at the Jayhawk Soccer Complex. Scoring the goals for the Jayhawks were freshman Afton Sauer and junior Kimberly Karfonta.

Sauer said it was a bit of a change to be able to play a whole game again instead of just practice.

“It was awesome to start playing a game,” Sauer said. “It is so different to step out on the field and play a 90 minute game compared to practicing. I wish we would have done better but it was just fun getting out there and playing as a team again.”

Freshman forward Emily Strinden agreed.

“It was really awesome to have come together and get a win after not playing anyone but ourselves for a long time,” Strinden said. “We kind of started to get tired of just practicing with ourselves, and everyone was really excited to play a real game.”

Junior forward Caroline Smith said it was nice to be able to compete against another team and to rejoin the other players again.

“It’s definitely nice to get back on the field and compete against other teams,” Smith said. “It’s great that we all got to play on the same team because in spring practice we are always split up. The win is always nice but I think it showed us a lot of things to improve on.”

Last year’s Big 12 champion squad finished 11th in the country in RPI rankings, which was the best finish in school history. To improve on that this season, players took it upon themselves to train for the upcoming season. Sophomore defender Holly Gault said her offseason training started right after the end of last season.

“I was so ready to get back out and start training that I didn’t take much time off,” Gault said.

Sauer thinks she is in even better shape than she was last season as a result of personal training, and that she has become better at little things such as passing and getting touches.

The team has also been practicing to improve how it plays as a unit.

The Jayhawks lost seven seniors from last season, but hope to improve and advance further into the postseason this year. The team had its most impressive season last year, but was knocked out of the NCAA Tournament in the second round.

“As a team we have most of our defenders returning, however some changing positions,” Gault said. “So we have mainly been working on putting people in situations that they haven’t been in before so we can gain experience.”

Strinden said the team has been practicing hard and has become more close-knit. She said she hopes this will help in the upcoming season.

The Jayhawks still have four more spring exhibition games. The team will next be in action April 23 when it takes on Purdue in Indianapolis. The Jayhawks will play the next day against Indiana in Bloomington, Ind.

The Jayhawks will play their final two spring exhibition games in Lawrence.

On April 28 they take on the Blue Valley Stars U-15 squad and May 5 against the KCFC U-15 team.