Men’s Soccer: Lobos to face Southern Methodist in spring opener

The spring season has finally arrived for the Lobos, and they will play their first game away from home to Southern Methodist.

It will be UNM’s first competition since the 4-1 away loss to the University of Washington in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

The Lobos finished the fall with a record of 12-7-3, and won their first Conference USA Championship in program history back in November, beating Florida International University 3-0 in Huntington, West Virginia. 

The 2016 campaign also saw the Lobos qualify for the NCAA tournament for the 12th time in the 16 years of UNM head coach Jeremy Fishbein’s tenure.

But UNM lost four seniors from that team — Chris Gurule, Chris Wehan, Nick Rochowski and Niko Hansen — though the team also signed four new players as well.

The Lobos also lost sophomore Patrick Khouri, who seized an opportunity to play professionally for GBK Kokkola, a professional club in the Finnish second division (Ykkönen). 

New Mexico has also seen changes in the coaching staff, with UNM assistant coach Paul Souders ending a 9-year coaching career with the Lobos to join the coaching staff at Central Florida.

Hansen, named an All-American after the fall season, was drafted ninth overall by the Columbus Crew in the 2017 Major League Soccer Super Draft.

New Mexico native and current UNM sophomore Aaron Herrera is also making headlines, as he has been featured several times on the U.S men's national under-20 team in their World Cup qualifying campaign. 

The U-20s recently booked themselves a place in the 2017 U-20 World Cup by beating El Salvador.

UNM’s opener against Southern Methodist is part of the FC Dallas Showcase event, an event meant to exhibit the talent of young players.

Southern Methodist is a Division I program which finished the 2016 campaign with a record of 6-9-1. The Mustangs will not play again in the spring until Mar. 31 when it takes on Midwestern State University. 

Fishbein said that the spring season will be a great opportunity for the younger players to test themselves in preparation for the fall season.

"We are really excited about our spring schedule," Fishbein said in a release. "Our goal every spring is to test ourselves against top Division I competition and put ourselves in an environment that closely replicates what we'll encounter in the fall.”

After facing the Mustangs, the Lobos will travel to Phoenix, Arizona to play Grand Canyon University on March 11.

Other games on the spring schedule include matchups in April against Air Force, Colorado School of Mines and the University of Denver. The lone home match of the spring season will be against the Colorado School of Mines, a Division II program.

Kickoff against Southern Methodist is at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday.

Matthieu Cartron is a sports reporter for the Daily Lobo. He primarily covers women’s soccer. He can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter 
@cartron_matt.