Jeremy Fishbein said he doesn't have any plans to punish his team if it loses to Fort Lewis College on Saturday.
The head coach of the UNM men's soccer team coached Fort Lewis from 1992 to 1998. It was his first college coaching job, but he said he's not worried about Saturday's game carrying any hints of a rivalry.
"The point of playing games is to win them," he said. "But I think we'll play well. These games are for us to work on certain aspects of our game."
The Lobos play a doubleheader on Saturday against Air Force at 10 a.m. and Fort Lewis at 2 p.m.
Fort Lewis is a Division II team, while Air Force is one of the Lobos' fellow members in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.
It's the first doubleheader of two UNM will play before the season starts in the fall. On April 27, the Lobos will take on the Colorado Rapids of the MLS and Denver University. Denver also belongs to the MPSF.
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UNM hasn't played a game since its Nov. 27 loss to the No. 4-seeded University of Virginia in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament. The 13th-seeded Lobos lost in a penalty kick shootout, 6-5. The loss stopped UNM's longest run into the tournament.
Fishbein said the team is showing no signs of rust coming into this weekend.
"We've worked really hard this winter and this spring," he said. "We have guys that have been playing really well. Some of the guys that didn't get a lot of time last year are really stepping up and are prepared to fill roles for us."
UNM took down Fort Lewis last fall in an exhibition match, 1-0. Freshman Blake Danaher scored the game-winning goal in the 74th minute of that game.
Fort Lewis made it to the second round of the NCAA Division II Midwest Regional before losing to the University of Incarnate Word 2-0 last season.
The Lobos played Air Force twice last year in conference play, winning 2-0 and 3-0. Junior Jeff Rowland scored both goals in the first game and one in the second. Danaher added one to go along with junior Lance Watson's goal to open things up in the second game.
Fishbein said the team that will play on Saturday is far from a complete squad. UNM has five recruits coming in for the 2005-06 season.
"Things are going really well for us right now," Fishbein said. "We don't have that big of a squad in the spring. Next season's team will look completely different, because we have some new guys coming in that will hopefully make an impact."
Fishbein said he's going to use Saturday's games to work out some kinks that might be present in the system.
"We're just going to work on our playing style," he said. "We want to work out how we attack and how we defend."
