by David J. Chavez
Daily Lobo
The UNM women's soccer team split its last two games, but that doesn't mean the Lobos walked away without taking something positive from the experience.
"I mean, of course we wanted the two wins, but the fact that we split those two games isn't going to bring us down at all," senior Kristine Sweat said. "We're just going to keep playing one game at a time and keep playing hard."
UNM lost to Washington, 1-0, on Friday and beat Washington State, 1-0, on Thursday.
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The games were part of the Pac-10/Mountain West Conference Challenge in Seattle.
The win was Kit Vela's first victory against a Pac-10 team as UNM's head coach.
Against Washington, UNM had 15 shots. The Huskies had 11.
Vela said both teams challenged each other for the whole game, and in the end, one slipup cost the Lobos a win.
"We just didn't put the ball in the back of the net on that day," Vela said. "They're a very good team. We outplayed them at times, and they outplayed us at times, and it went back and forth until we made a mistake, and they scored a goal."
The game was a battle of two defenses. It stayed scoreless until the 77th minute when Washington's Katy Dowling scored to win the game. UNM finished the game with four corner kicks and seven shots on goal.
Sweat and junior Anna Neu took over offensively for UNM with four shots each.
Sophomore Shannon Adragna got her ninth straight start as the UNM goalie and made two saves.
Sweat said a new strategy might have been the reason for the Lobos' lack of scoring.
"Everyone worked really hard. We had a few shots that hit the post and came real close, but it was just one of those games," Sweat said. "We stuck together as a team really well. We played a different formation and had different people playing other positions that they were not really comfortable with, and the goal just didn't come."
The Lobos controlled the tempo in most of the first half against the Cougars on Thursday by outshooting them 7-0 in the first 20 minutes of the game.
The Cougars then got on track when Carly Dobratz's shot deflected off the crossbar in the 24th minute, and Brooke Bemis tried to put in a header off a free kick.
The Cougars fought back in the second half, but the Lobos contained them. At the 76-minute mark, sophomore Asha Richardson scored a goal - her third of the year - to put the Lobos up 1-0.
The Cougars gave the Lobos a scare in the 84th minute when a shot by Elysse Van Leer was saved off the goal line by Adragna.
Vela said she wants the Lobos' great playing to continue next week when they start conference games.
"We're getting better and better and more experienced," Vela said. "Hopefully, for as well as we played against Washington, we can take that experience into conference and find a way. Once you get to conference play, every game is do or die."
