Men’s soccer
The New Mexico men’s soccer team suffered its first road loss of the season, falling to South Carolina 1-0.
The teams played a scoreless regulation game before the Gamecocks’ Eli Dent scored the game-winner just a minute into the overtime period.
UNM held a 14-8 advantage in shots and an 10-3 edge in corner kicks. Lobo senior goalkeeper Michael Lisch stopped two South Carolina shots-on-goal.
The loss drops UNM (8-4-2, 4-1-1 Conference USA) to second place in the league standings. The Lobos are now tied with Alabama-Birmingham, which comes to the UNM Soccer Complex on Friday.
“You leave yourself open if you don’t take chances. We have said that all season,” UNM head coach Jeremy Fishbein said. “We hit the post three times and didn’t take advantage of the chances we created.”
Women’s soccer
UNM’s women’s soccer team fell into a tie for second place in the Mountain West Conference standings Sunday after a 2-1 double-overtime loss to Boise State.
UNM sophomore goalkeeper Cassie Ulrich stopped 11 Boise State shots-on-goal in the loss, and the Broncos outshot the Lobos by 25-12.
The Lobos (8-9-2, 6-2-1 MWC) struck first at the 49:13 mark off a Boise State own goal following a crossing pass by sophomore midfielder Dylann O’Connor. The Broncos’ midfielder Brooke Heidemann recorded her eighth goal this season at 51:43 to tie the match, and teammate midfielder Baylee Blaser scored a game-winning golden goal in overtime at 107:53.
“It just wasn’t our day today,” UNM coach Kit Vela said. “I think we showed a little bit of fatigue and a little bit of our youth. It was a long trip with lots of lessons, but we live to fight another day.”
UNM entered the game following a scoreless draw with Utah State on Friday. Ulrich made six saves. San Diego State secured the MWC regular-season title with UNM’s Sunday loss and the Aztecs’ 2-0 win over Utah State.
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NCAA grad rates
UNM graduated 50 percent of the student-athletes who enrolled as freshman during the 2006-07 school year, according to NCAA information released by the UNM Athletic Department.
The rate is 10 percentage points lower than it was a year ago, but it is higher than the University’s 46 percent graduation rate, the release states. Those figures do not account for student-athletes who transferred from UNM.
Six coaching changes in the 2006-07 academic year led to many player transfers. Those new hires were Steve Alford in men’s basketball, Ray Birmingham in baseball, Joe Franklin in cross country and track and field, Fredrik Landstedt in skiing, Jeff Nelson in volleyball and Ty Singleton in softball.
“We knew because of the high number of coaching changes in 2007 that it would impact our federal graduation rate because we had a lot of movement of student-athletes in that year,” UNM athletics director Paul Krebs said.
UNM has 74 percent in the NCAA’s Graduation Success Rate, which does include the transfer student factor, according to the release. It marks the fourth-straight year UNM reached a GSR of 74 percent or higher.
The women’s basketball team, coached by Yvonne Sanchez, boasted a 100 percent GSR for the fourth straight year. Birmingham’s baseball team had a 73 percent rate while football had its second-highest rate at 58 percent.
