Conference play kicks off with Lobos 2-0

sports@dailylobo.com
@ThomasRomeroS

The New Mexico women’s soccer team managed to satisfy its hunger this weekend by winning both of its Mountain West Conference games against San Jose State and Fresno State.

The Lobos (4-7-1, 2-0-0 MWC) beat Fresno State on Sunday 1-0. The only goal of the game was made by sophomore midfielder Dylann O’Connor. The goal came in the 51st minute and was O’Connor’s third of the year.

“We just stuck to our game plan,” said head coach Kit Vela. “Our young players have been maturing. I think they showed all those lessons that they’ve learned over the course of this season and they stayed by the game plan and figured out how to get it done.”

Sophomore goalkeeper Cassie Ulrich had four saves, one of which was against a penalty kick made by Fresno State’s senior defender Morgan Castain, who attempted six out of the ten total shots fired by the Bulldogs.

“This is great for us. We’ve been waiting for this all season, we’ve been working our butts off and we’ve been playing hard,” Ulrich said. “It’s been a long time coming because we haven’t been able to find the back of the net. So that’s really important for us, great start to the conference.”

O’Connor said the team is still trying to figure itself out, but is improving.

“We had a really hard preseason, a lot of tough teams,” O’Connor said. “Our record wasn’t something that we were expecting and we weren’t scoring as many goals as we thought. I think conference has really changed our mentality. We scored on Friday night and I think they are just going to keep coming.”

On Friday, UNM defeated San Jose State 2-1 in overtime. SJSU’s senior defender Sarah Fraser made her first goal of the year when she fired from 10 yards out at the 11:31 minute, going off the goal post into the net.

“We knew that San Jose was a good team, very athletic, big girls,” said Vela. “We know that they play hard, and they’re California kids so we knew what they were about. But one shot, one goal, we were like, ‘You got to be kidding me.’”

Sophomore midfielder Annie Wheeler scored the Lobos’ first goal in the 58th minute, which was from 10 yards out and unassisted. The winning goal was made in overtime by sophomore midfielder Lindsey Guice with an assist from freshman midfielder Ruth Brusiaga.

“I thought we did a great job of taking any obstacle that came in our way,” Vela said. “We played with poise and confidence.”