Super-senior midfielder Rylan Childers’ goal and two assists led the Jayhawks to a 3-0 win over Kansas City.
The first half of the game lacked offense as it was 0-0 at the break. The Jayhawks registered eight shots against Kansas City’s one.
The best chance of the half belonged to Kansas City after the Jayhawks gave away the ball in the back line.
Kansas City graduate senior Katie Stephens got the ball on the left side of the goal, but skyrocketed the biggest chance of the match for the Roos.
“For the amount we had the ball, we didn’t create great chances,” head coach Mark Francis said of the first half performance.
The 2nd half is when the Jayhawks were able to start capitalizing in the final third. In the 55th minute, sophomore midfielder Raena Childers received a pass from her sister Rylan and slid the ball in nicely to put the Jayhawks in front.
Rylan Childers was able to double her assist tally in the 61st minute. This time, she was able to find junior forward Shira Elinav.
Childers’s pass came from behind midfield and was a perfect through-ball. Elinav had a Kansas City defender on her back, who went for the tackle but took herself out of the play doing so.
Elinav finished the 1-on-1 with the goalkeeper with ease to double the Jayhawk lead.
Rylan Childers, after two assists, was not done. In the 74th minute she was able to find the back of the net herself.
The Jayhawks had a shot hit the crossbar and come right back to them. Childers received the next pass and was able to create enough room to fire the ball in from the right side.
The Childers goal capped off the Jayhawk 3-0 win.
“Rylan was on a different level tonight. She was really the difference in the game,” Francis said about his midfielder. Citing the impact she had not only with the goal and two assists but with the tempo and defense.
“She controlled the tempo for us, she works hard defensively”
It was a dominating effort as the Jayhawks outshot the Roos 24-2. Senior goalkeeper Melania Pasar was only called upon to make one save on the night.
She was able to watch the final 12:49 from the touchline as she was subbed out for redshirt-freshman goalkeeper Hayven Harrison.
Pasar was not the only one getting unprecedented rest tonight, as the Jayhawks played 20 players in the comfortable win.
The win comes after their four-game winning streak was snapped in a loss to Missouri in Columbia last Sunday.
Kansas looks for Thursday to be the start of a new winning streak, as they take on Yale on Sunday at 1 p.m. at Rock Chalk Park.
