Another one bites the dust.
On a rain-soaked field Thursday night, the UNM men's soccer team beat San Diego State 3-0, winning the seventh consecutive game.
The Lobos, ranked No. 5 nationally, are off to their second-best start in school history. UNM won eight straight games in the 2002 season.
Coming off a win against former No. 1 Indiana, head coach Jeremy Fishbein said he was proud his Lobos didn't come out complacently in the SDSU game. Especially, he said, since the Aztecs took the Lobos into overtime last year before finally losing.
"I was a little worried the team wasn't going to take it as seriously as they needed to," he said. "But we came out here and got the win we needed. It feels great to get that first conference game out of the way."
The Lobos scored their first goal in the 14th minute when Ben Ashwill and co-captain Brandon Moss connected for a combination play that allowed Moss to slip past the defense.
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Moss raced to the ball played by Ashwill and smoothly placed it around a sliding defender to the feet of co-captain Eric Carlson. The few yards of space the Aztec defense gave Carlson was all he needed to finish the ball in the side of the net.
The Lobos came out after intermission with the confidence that the No. 5 team in the country should have, Fishbein said.
"We talked about it at halftime, and we knew we were the better team," he said. "We just needed to start taking it to people."
Six minutes into the second half, UNM was awarded a free kick for a hard foul committed by the Aztecs. The Lobos wasted no time in using the opportunity to their advantage. Senior Hans Bevers played a ball across the middle that a streaking Andrew Boyens headed into the back of the net beyond diving SDSU goalkeeper Tally Hall. Bevers recorded his Mountain Pacific Sports Federation-leading fifth assist on the goal.
The SDSU goal would not stay unscathed for much longer. Fifteen minutes later, the Aztec defense was caught napping by a Lobo team that quickly restarted a direct kick SDSU was still arguing about.
Matt Wootton took the ball in stride and played it into the middle for forward Jeff Rowland. The nation's fifth-ranked goal scorer calmly rolled the ball to the opposite side of the net as Hall dove in the wrong direction and was left sprawled out on the field.
Senior goalkeeper Andrew Weber further solidified his top spot in the UNM record books with his 20th career shutout. He said this first conference win was an important one.
"This first win is big," Weber said. "It's huge. This was the way we needed to start off the conference season."
