Men's soccer tie feels like a loss

by Riley Bauling

Daily Lobo

Being the No. 2-ranked team is more of a curse than a blessing.

The UNM men's soccer team found that out Sunday in a 1-1 double-overtime tie in Sacramento, Calif., against the Sacramento State Hornets.

"It's hard because every team wants to beat us," senior left back Matt Wootton said. "They have everything to play for. All they want to do is ruin our season, but, heck, when you're a top-rated team like us, we should expect that and deal with it."

The Lobos scored first in the 16th minute when junior Lars Loeseth put in a Lance Watson corner kick past goalkeeper Matt McDougall for his second goal of the season.

He scored in the 96th minute of the first meeting between the teams to give the Lobos a 1-0 win Oct. 14.

The Lobos held onto the lead until the 29th minute before the Hornets' Eliot Ricks-Chambers tied the game for good on a five-yard volley.

Senior forward Jeff Rowland said the tie didn't feel like a tie at all - it felt much worse.

"It definitely feels like a loss," he said.

The Lobos can still breathe a sigh of relief when thinking about their hopes for a repeat conference championship though.

Conference-leading San Jose State University, who UNM beat 3-1 on Friday night, tied the University of Nevada-Las Vegas 2-2 on Sunday.

If the Lobos win their last two games, they will still be able to get their hands on the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation trophy and the automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament that comes with it.

UNM sits in second place in the MPSF at 5-1-2, while the Spartans are 6-2-1.

With 19 goals in conference play compared with the Spartans' 17 and two games left to play to San Jose's one, the Lobos hold the tiebreaker over the Spartans to win the MPSF.

Don't let that make you think the Lobos took anything positive out of their two-game California road trip.

"Our challenge wasn't to win or lose. It was to continue to improve our play and we didn't do that," head coach Jeremy Fishbein said. "We came here to win both games."

Rowland said UNM's stumble on Sunday was because the Lobos might have looked past the Hornets.

"It's kind of like in this game we felt like we were just going to roll out and beat them," he said. "In soccer, any team can beat any team in the country."

UNM had to get through Sunday's game without starting center back Josh Brown, who was serving a suspension for receiving his fifth yellow card of the season against San Jose on Friday.

Wootton moved over to center back to replace him, while freshman Mike Giffin got the start at left back.

Brown played every minute of every game this season except for the time he got to rest in the Lobos' 7-2 win against the University of Nevada-Las Vegas on Oct. 22.

Wootton said the tie isn't going to deter the Lobos' plans for the next two games.

"We're going to win against Denver and we're going to win against Air Force," he said. "There's nothing else we can do about it."