The UNM women’s basketball team has a conference championship in its sights.
Last season, UNM finished with a 13-18 record and won just five games in conference on the way to its seventh place finish in the MWC.
This year it was picked to finish fourth in the MWC, but senior Porsche Torrance said that winning the title is a realistic goal.
“I haven’t won a ring since my freshman year, so I am ready for the challenge to get one more before I leave, and I think we can do it,” she said.
If UNM is to succeed, it will have to do so without Sara Halasz, who suffered a season-ending ACL tear two weeks ago.
Halasz was picked as a preseason all-conference selection, but head coach Yvonne Sanchez said the team can’t use the loss as an excuse.
“Just because we have had some adversity, I can’t tell these kids, ‘Well, let’s shape for a mediocre year,’” Sanchez said. “We tell them they have to go their hardest and leave it all on the court so we can win basketball games.”
Guard Nikki Nelson is returning after she missed all of last season with the same injury Halasz has. She will be the player to pick up the slack, Sanchez said.
“She is going to run the team,” the head coach said. “She has done a great job so far. She is a good point guard and has done a tremendous job coming back from two surgeries.”
Sanchez has been the assistant coach at UNM since 2000, and took over as head coach after former head coach Don Flanagan retired in April.
Nelson said the two coaches she has had in her time at UNM have been very different.
“She (Sanchez) is a lot more vocal,” she said. “Flanagan was kind of even-keeled, and Sanchez is more of getting it done and more vocal and enthusiastic.”
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Five freshmen left the team for unknown reasons after Flanagan retired, and the Lobos also lost two seniors to graduation.
Torrance said that the players were in shock after them team lost so many players, but used the shock to make them better.
“We lost two seniors, and then losing the five freshmen at the moment when that was all going on, it was a shock,” she said. “We just had to take on the challenge and know that the eight of us returning could still compete.”
Torrance is one of only two seniors left on the team, and she said she needs to take charge on the court.
“As a senior and a leader on the court, I need to be more vocal and have more energy and lead by example,” she said. “I have to lead my team on and encourage them every time we step into a game.”
UNM opens its regular season on Nov. 11. Sanchez said the team will be prepared when it steps onto the court for the first time under her coaching.
“As a coaching staff, we are going to put them in positions to win basketball games,” she said. “I truly believe as players they are going to put us in positions to win games.”
