It was supposed to be the seniors' day when the UNM women's soccer team played its last home game of the season Sunday, but it was the younger players who showed flashes of brilliance in a 3-0 win against San Diego State University at the UNM Soccer Complex.
A pair of freshman and a sophomore scored goals for the Lobos (4-10-2, 3-2-1 in the Mountain West Conference) and the seniors contributed stingy defense. The win is the first at home this season for the Lobos and helped them finish with a winning record in conference for the first time since 1997. UNM looked impressive, using a physical, hustling defense and an opportunistic offense to get the win.
Freshmen Rachael Addison and Kelly Campbell and sophomore Erchen Theys scored goals for UNM, catapulting the Lobos to their best offensive performance in five years.
Both the Aztecs and Lobos came out of the starting gate struggling in the first half, with much of the play in the midfield. Neither team could put together any sort of rhythm offensively. UNM finally was able to put together a few passes midway through the half and it produced a goal.
Freshman forward Coco D'Angelo received a pass in the left baseline, was able to maneuver around a defender and sent a low cross to the middle of the box to freshman forward Rachael Addison. Addison just got enough of the ball to direct it into the goal for her second of the season.
The goal settled down the Lobos, keeping possession of the ball the rest of the half.
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Leading 1-0 at halftime, UNM dominated the second half of play, producing numerous scoring opportunities. The Lobos started passing the ball around more crisply and had the Aztecs (5-10-2, 1-3-1) on the ropes for much of the half.
"We played way better the second half, I think we started relaxing and sticking to our game plan," Theys said. "We played the ball to the corner flags and then we were just trying to cross it. We never gave up; we played really well together."
After surviving several scoring threats from San Diego State early in the half, the Lobos began to take control of the game. The passing paid off in the 67th minute when Theys corralled a pass just outside the upper left corner of the 18-yard box and hammered a left footed shot into the top left corner of the goal, just outside the reach of Aztec goalie Linnea Quinones. The Lobos would put the game away 10 minutes later when Theys stole a pass at midfield and sent a through pass to junior midfielder Casie Deegan.
Deegan outhustled the Aztec defender to the ball in the left corner and sent a line drive cross to the middle of the box.
Junior midfielder Tara Alarid one touched the pass in the middle to freshman forward Kelly Campbell, who lobbed a shot over Quinones for her first career goal on her first career shot.
The senior combination of goalie Shelly Hammock and defender Danielle Pecastaing thwarted many of the attacks by San Diego State, with the Aztecs outshooting the Lobos 17-9.
Hammock recorded her fourth shutout of the season, finishing with eight saves. Pecastaing and several of her teammates contained the Aztecs' Kim Castellanos, the conferences' leading goal scorer.
Castellanos had five shots, but most of them were hurried because of the hustling Lobo defense.
"We were all backing each other, when someone made a mistake there were two, three other girls behind us," Pecastaing said.
The win gave the Lobos a split in their weekend series versus conference opponents. UNM lost to the University of Nevada at Las Vegas 2-1 in overtime Friday.
The Lobos led late in the second half on a goal by Pecastaing, but the Rebels scored two goals in a seven minute span, including 20 seconds into overtime.
