by Riley Bauling
Daily Lobo
The glass slipper doesn't fit after all.
The Cinderella jaunt through the Mountain West Conference Tournament of the No. 5-seeded UNM women's soccer team ended in overtime Saturday in the championship game.
The Lobos fell 1-0 to the No. 2-seeded and host University of Nevada-Las Vegas Runnin' Rebels.
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Head coach Kit Vela said the run to the championship was a chance for the Lobos to thumb their noses at the rest of the league for thinking they didn't belong in the finals.
"It's a little bittersweet because no one thought we should be there, but you get so close to what your goal is and there's not much you can do about it," she said.
UNM's dreams of snagging the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament were crushed when Rebels' forward Katie Carney received a pass from Lori Sakai 10 yards from the goal. She turned and fired a shot past goalkeeper Kristen Winters in the 96th minute.
The loss wasn't all tears and broken hearts for the Lobos though, Vela said.
"We finally have a tradition now," she said. "We have three seniors who stuck by us for the past five or six years because they came at different times to the program, and they set in motion a winning tradition. Not just a winning season, but a winning tradition."
UNM made it to the championship by beating the No. 4-seeded Wyoming Cowgirls 1-0 in the quarterfinals. The Lobos took down the No. 1-seeded Utah Utes in the semifinals 1-0.
UNM was the lowest seed to ever advance to the MWC Championship game and it was only the second time in the history of the program that the Lobos made it to the finals of the tournament. The first time was a 5-1 loss to Brigham Young University in 2003.
UNM dropped to 8-7-4 on the season, while the Rebels improved to 13-6-3 with at least one game left in the NCAA Tournament.
The Lobos placed five players on the all-tournament team:
Alanna Abeyta, Bridgette Sanchez, Kaela Kelly, Nicole McCarty and Ashley Lowery.
Vela said she's already looking forward to next year because for once, the team will have experienced players and not just a slew of underclassmen.
"We return six seniors who will all be on the field. We've got sophomores that were so huge and instrumental in the program and we have freshman that are going to flourish in the next six to eight months," she said. "I look at the future and it's brighter than it's ever been."
