The UNM men's soccer team's season has been a lot like a game of cards.
And the team just got dealt its final hand.
Despite a No. 1 national ranking in the Soccer America poll, the Lobos received a No. 13 seed in the NCAA tournament.
UNM gets a first-round bye along with home-field advantage for one game with the top-16 seed. The NCAA selection committee seeds only 16 teams, with the top eight staying at home for two games after their first-round bye.
UNM is currently ranked in the top six in every national poll.
Junior captain Brandon Moss tried to dispel any grumblings about the NCAA selection committee's decision.
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"Initially we felt like we got a little slighted," he said. "But those are the cards we got dealt, and we are going to take them."
UNM will see just what cards it's holding this Tuesday against the Portland Pilots at 7 p.m. The Pilots moved on to the second round, after proving they love watching opposing goalkeepers fetch the ball out of the back of the net with a 5-3 win against the host Washington Huskies.
With the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation regular season title, the Lobos anxiously waited at a restaurant near the airport last Monday to see just how much all their hard work this season had paid off.
The NCAA selection committee didn't see eye-to-eye with UNM on this issue.
You be the judge:
No. 2-seeded Indiana visited the Lobos this season at home and lost. No. 7-seeded Southern Methodist was paid a visit by UNM in a preseason exhibition game and lost. No. 16 Virginia Commonwealth took the Lobos into overtime and lost. Both unseeded Cal-State Northridge and Loyola Marymount hosted UNM and - you guessed it - lost.
If you're keeping track, the Lobos are 5-0 against tournament-bound teams.
"We really had hoped we would be in the top eight," head coach Jeremy Fishbein said. "But we don't have to prove anything to anyone. We have the best record in the country, and if we play up to our potential, we will be successful."
Whether they deserved the seed or not, Moss took the route of a captain and said the seed was indicative of the team's fairly recent rise to national prominence.
"All the top seeds have been there year after year," he said. "This is our first year at the top. It all comes down to the fact that we've got to win (against Portland), or everything else we've done this season will be forgotten."
This season might not be so easily lost in the back of fans' minds though. This is the first time the Lobos have been ranked No. 1 in the country, junior Jeff Rowland and sophomore Andrew Boyens were co-MPSF Players of the Year, and freshman Blake Danaher was named to the Top Drawer Soccer All-Freshman 3rd team.
But the list of accolades means nothing now. It's all going to come down to that final hand of cards.
"It's a new season now - the postseason," Fishbein said. "A lot of things can happen in soccer, but 48 teams are all in the same situation as us. Now we'll just let the cards fall."
