During their first game of the season, the University of New Mexico women's soccer team came out firing against the Texas Southern University Lady Tigers, cruising to an 8-0 victory during the match on Thursday, Aug. 14.
The Lobos struck early, scoring three goals within the first 15 minutes and six goals in the first half. The scoring was well-balanced, with five Lobos putting the ball into the net.
The scoring extravaganza led to the most goals the Lobos have scored in a match since 2002. Last season, the Lobos scored 23 goals total with their highest scoring game a 5-2 win against the Nevada Wolf Pack.
Lobos’ Head Coach Heather Dyche praised the team play that led to the efficient offense.
“Anytime you can score that many goals, it doesn't matter. It's just good. It builds confidence. The coolest part that I liked about it was, a lot of those goals were from collective play,” Dyche said. “It's some really good decisions in crossing, some really good movement in the box, and it's something we've been really harping on because we didn't score enough goals (last season).”
That collective play was demonstrated by the play of defender Fiona Jenkins, who had three assists — the most assists recorded in a single game in program history. Those assists go along with her one shot-on-goal and 68 minutes of playing time. The junior increased her career assists to four after recording one assist in 18 games last season.
Another star performance from the Lobos was a hat-trick performed by forward Nicole Anderson. The three-goal game from Anderson reaches near her total number of goals from last season — four after starting all 18 games.
“I think the coolest part about it was, I know Nicole Anderson can do that. I thought she could do that since she got here, because she's just got a different confidence. And I even mentioned it to her, she's been doing it all, and she's just like, clinical and composed,” Dyche said.
The game was also the team’s mental health awareness game, with coaching staff wearing green shirts in honor of mental health awareness.
“I think this team does a really good job of identifying that sometimes you need help, and it's important to us that that's a normalization. It's no different than asking for physical health, and that's been all led by them too,” Dyche said. “This whole campaign is led by them, so pretty cool that they want to represent something bigger than soccer.”
The Lobos defense was also solid, though the team did epitomize the adage of “the best defense is a good offense,” spending most of the game in the opposing half of the field on the attack.
Goalkeeper Jasmin Gonzalez-Rutt put up a clean sheet, allowing zero goals through the full 90 minutes; however, she didn’t have much work to do as the Lady Tigers only managed five shots and only two on goal, both of which were saved by Gonzalez-Rutt.
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The Lobos' return home on Aug. 24 to take on the Colorado School of Mines.
“They deserve it, and so I'm really happy for them. I'm proud of them, but it's one game, so now we just gotta find the next game. Keep it rolling, and I think this group will do that,” Dyche said.
Jaden McKelvey-Francis is the editor-in-chief of the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at editorinchief@dailylobo.com or on X @jadenmckelvey
