UNM took down the Grand Canyon Lopes 1-0 thanks to another goal by senior forward Niko Hansen and shutdown defense on Sunday night.
The lone goal gave the Lobos (4-2-0) their second win of the Grange and Ashwill Memorial Tournament weekend, and their fourth straight overall. All four wins have been shutouts under junior goalkeeper Jason Beaulieu.
"It was a great goal by Niko Hansen and we also had some really good play by our back four,” said head coach Jeremy Fishbein. “These guys were coming off of a 110-minute match on Friday, so they showed a lot of heart and a high level of fitness. I was really proud of that."
A weather delay pushed the start of the match back to around 7:20pm, more than an hour later than originally scheduled.
When the match finally got underway, both teams took turns taking control of the field. Within the first 15 minutes, CGU took a total of five shots while the Lobos took three.
In the 21st minute, senior midfielder Josh Goss took a corner kick for the Lobos which lead to freshman defender Matthew Constant taking a header that ended up slightly too high to get inside the net.
In the 29th minute senior midfielder Chris Wehan took a shot that looked promising. GCU goalkeeper Kendyl Day managed to stop it, but the ball bounced off of him. Junior forward Luke Lawrence quickly took possession of the ball before his attempt ended up going too wide on the right side.
About 10 minutes later, it was the Lopes who almost got one in. In the 38th minute GCU’s junior defender, Aidan McGlothan, took a shot from inside the box. Beaulieu reacted quickly enough to make the save, as he has been apt to do consistently in the young season.
The first half ended with New Mexico having a slight 11-9 lead in shots, and both teams recording two corner kicks.
The second period went much the same way, with not one clearly dominant side.
Hansen broke the stalemate in the 55th minute when he dribbled past two defenders and buried the ball into the back of the net.
"We battled this one out," Hansen said. "It was a rough first half, I think. It was just getting used to the field a little bit, but in the end we got the goal and we got the win so it was good for us.”
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Four Lobos made the All-Tournament team: Beaulieu, Tom Smart, Chris Gurule and Hansen.
Smart was awarded Defensive MVP, while Hansen took home both Offensive MVP and Tournament MVP.
"That was a mature performance today,” said Fishbein. “It wasn’t an easy win. We made it harder than it needed to be. We had some really good chances early and whenever you don’t take those and you let a good team get a hold of the ball, they create chances.”
Fishbein said Grand Canyon (2-3-0) proved to be a tough opponent, and that although he thought the Lobos could have performed better, he was happy to see that even on not-so-good days his team can still get results.
“Our guys handled this well,” he added. “Tough weekend, but real proud of them. Now it’s time to get our legs back under us and prepare for the next one.”
Isabel Gonzalez is a sports reporter for the Daily Lobo. She mainly covers men’s soccer and basketball. She can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @cisabelg.
