by Riley Bauling
Daily Lobo
The senior captain on the UNM men's soccer team stopped just short of guaranteeing two home wins this weekend for the Lobos.
"We haven't lost a game at home since the UNLV game my sophomore year," Brandon Moss said. "In a sense, it's almost two guaranteed wins. That is, if we show up to play."
Moss and the Lobos have every right to walk with a little swagger heading into their first home game of the season tonight against Wisconsin.
UNM is undefeated this year with four straight wins in two consecutive weekend road trips.
The Lobos haven't dropped a game at home since Oct. 18, 2003, against UNLV.
That game also happened to be the only time head coach Jeremy Fishbein has lost at the UNM Soccer Complex.
But don't let an almost two-year winning streak at home convey any message of overconfidence.
"We have a pretty mature group of guys that know the fine line of winning and losing," Fishbein said. "That fear and respect of our opponents will hopefully keep us from overlooking anyone."
Starting central defender Andrew Boyens, fresh off a National Team of the Week award, is following Fishbein's mantra too.
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"We can't get too complacent," he said. "Last year when we got complacent, we lost to Denver and then tied SDSU (San Diego State). We have to be confident but be wary that we're playing two quality teams this weekend."
With a 10-game winning streak last year, the Lobos lost in Denver to the Pioneers 2-1. Two games later they tied SDSU 1-1 in San Diego.
It was the only loss and tie UNM had in the regular season last year.
Moss said the team is proceeding with a little caution to go along with its confidence into Friday's battle with the Badgers.
"I guess we're a little bit worried," he said. "We're playing a Big-10 team, but everyone's more confident than anything. We haven't had any indication that we shouldn't win the game, as long as we just go out there and play our soccer."
That soccer includes holding the ball for longer and waiting more patiently to attack, Moss said. Those are things that took the Lobos a couple games to get the hang of.
The first weekend of the season the Lobos beat Penn State 2-0 and then took 96 minutes to score the lone goal in a 1-0 win over Ohio State.
Last weekend, UNM beat South Florida 3-2 and West Virginia 2-0. But Moss said the Lobos' scoring chances far outnumbered the amount of goals scored in each game.
With another week of practice, things are starting to click offensively, Moss said.
Boyens couldn't agree more.
"The more we play together, the better we get," he said. "With time we'll improve. We have to work at it. We have to keep the right frame of mind to keep trying to get better."
