Patrick Grange wasn't letting his senior season slip away that easily.
The forward played a part in three of the four goals the UNM men's soccer team scored against the Portland Pilots on Tuesday.
With a gnawing chill in the air, the 13th-seeded Lobos scored three second-half goals to beat the Portland Pilots 4-1 in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
Down one goal after 11 minutes on a Heath Pearce bomb from 25 yards out that flew over the top of Lobo goalkeeper Andrew Weber, Grange began to conjure up the offensive magic.
He took a pass on the right side of the field out of the air and went at the Pilot defense. After a burst of speed that left his defender desperately reaching out to grab his jersey, Grange sent a floating ball to the feet of a flying Lance Watson.
Watson put the ball back across the goalmouth as junior forward Jeff Rowland managed to stretch out and get a foot on it. Pilot goalkeeper Luis Robles saved the shot at point-blank range, but it ricocheted back to Rowland. Rowland promptly sent the ball right back and was helped out by Pilot defender Brian Cotlove's deflection into the side of the net.
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"We were excited," Grange said about coming into the game. "The crowd was behind us, and we worked off of it, and we're not done yet. That's all I've got to say."
That excitement might have been on the borderline of anxiety, a problem that could have been responsible for the Lobos' slow start.
"I think it was nerves," Grange said.
Rowland added the importance of the game was a big reason for their nervousness on the field.
"The first 20 minutes of the biggest game of probably all of our lives, and we weren't connecting passes," Rowland said. "But we didn't get scared. We knew we were going to come back and win that game."
The rest of the first half was scoreless for both teams, but that's not to say the Pilots were without chances.
The Lobos were saved by the woodwork on one of those chances after Miguel Guante blasted a shot from 30 yards out that Weber went airborne for. The ball clanked off the outside of the post and fell harmlessly out of the bounds.
Portland almost notched a second goal in the first half when Weber was forced out of his box to challenge a ball that had trickled through the defense.
The ball managed to squirt behind Weber, but Ricky Francis came sprinting back and slid to poke the ball away from trouble and an open goal.
The second goal for the Lobos wouldn't come until it looked like overtime was in the works.
In the 83rd minute, senior Jeff Krause and Rowland played a quick combination play that allowed them to thread their way through the defense.
After a failed attempt by Krause to send the ball across, Rowland said he just "saw the ball rolling around and was trying to just tip it across." His "tip" worked out better than maybe even he planned when it found a wide-open Grange. With the goalkeeper already out trying to defend the original loose ball, Grange had a shot into a free goal.
Grange, who said, "There was no way I was letting this game be my last," struck again when Rowland passed a ball to him at the penalty spot after streaking down the wing.
After colliding with Portland defender Michael Gavin, Grange was able to put enough behind the ball to send it trickling into the back of the net past the Robles' hands.
UNM picked up an insurance goal with 44 seconds left when Lance Watson scored on a depleted Portland defense that had gone forward to try and tie the game.
When the Lobos take on the 4th-seeded University of Virginia Saturday at 7 p.m. in Charlottesville, Va., they won't be going into the game feeling like an underdog, Grange said.
"This year we feel like we are the best team in the country," he said. "We can hang with anyone and beat anybody."
