The New Mexico Men’s Soccer team will look to build off its first win of the conference season against the No. 10 team in the country, St. Mary’s College (Calif.) on Wednesday night before resuming Conference-USA play on Saturday morning against Florida International University.
St. Mary’s comes into the matchup at 9-0-0, one of two teams in the country that has yet to record a result other than a win. The Gaels are coming off of a 1-0 victory over then No. 13 UC Davis and recorded their sixth shutout of the season in the process. SMC has only given up four goals to opponents all season, and have one of the most potent offenses in the country, averaging three goals per game so far this season.
“St. Mary’s is a good team, a safe team, with a couple of dynamic attackers, head coach Jeremy Fishbein said. “They’ve taken their chances, things have gone their way. It will be an interesting one, we have to have a great mentality for 90 minutes.”
With the season halfway done now, Fishbein said that the thing that his team needs to improve on moving through conference play is its discipline and maturity. It’s a young team, with 16 of the 27 players on the roster being freshmen, but he doesn’t think that prevents them from having that maturity.
Alex Fetterly will start in goal for the Lobos for the third consecutive game, and Fishbein says that the plan is to stick with the same lineup the team used against Florida Atlantic, which involved them rotating the defense. Bailey Letherman, who is listed on the team’s roster as a midfielder, made his first start at right back and the team moved Nick Barreiro into a central defensive position.
The Gaels are led offensively by Jake Rudel, who leads the team with seven goals. Five players are tied for the team lead in assists, with three each.
On Saturday, the Lobos will resume conference play against FIU in an 11 a.m. game. FIU is 3-5-0, 2-0-0 C-USA so far this season. In their last match, the Panthers defeated North Florida in a road match. The team hasn’t played a conference game since September 14 when they defeated UAB in double overtime.
The five goals that they scored against North Florida were a season high for the Panthers, but they have only averaged 1.62 goals per game so far this season. Santiago Patino is the team leader in goals with six in eight games so far this season.
The Lobos ultimate goal is to make the NCAA Tournament, but there is no possibility of an at-large bid without a .500 record, which UNM currently does not have.
It’s something they’ll need to achieve, though, and Fishbein says he wants his players taking it one game at a time, and right now that means slowing down the Gaels.
Cameron Goeldner is a sports beat reporter and photographer for the Daily Lobo. He primarily covers men’s soccer, women’s basketball, softball and the Albuquerque Isotopes, but also contributes content for baseball, basketball, football and track and field. He can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @goeldfinger.
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