Aug. 19, 2008
What: Lobos vs. Notre Dame, exhibition
When: 7 p.m., Wednesday
Where: UNM Soccer Complex
Tickets: Free; donations to American Cancer Society
For Lobos midfielder Justin Davis, it’s a “must-win” game.For teammate Stephen Brown, it’s a “big deal.”
So, what are we talking about here? Lobos and Notre Dame in the NCAA Sweet 16?No. This is just an exhibition game set for 7 p.m., Wednesday at the UNM Soccer Complex. It’s a ho-hum warm-up game. It’s a casual, no-pressure opportunity to work in the young players with all the returning studs.
Sure! And Yankees vs. Red Sox is just another baseball game.
“There is pride at stake here,” said Lobos coach Jeremy Fishbein. “It might be a cliche to say, ‘We have nothing to lose. It’s exhibition.’ But when our guys step onto the field, there always is pride at stake. They expect to win.
“And Notre Dame isn’t traveling all this way to lose.”
Says Davis: “I wouldn’t say this is a no-big-deal exhibition game. We want to show our fans that we are a team to be reckoned with. We think it’s a must-win. They (Notre Dame) are ranked better than us and we want to come out and make a point.”
The Irish carry a No. 15 pre-season ranking from CollegeSoccerNews. UNM is in the No. 19 spot. The Lobos think they are better than that; better than the UNM team that didn’t make it past the second round of the NCAA Tournament in 2007 and 2006.
“The past two years we’ve been pretty dissatisfied,” said Davis. “We’ve been using our youth as an excuse, but now, as a team that’s mostly juniors, we think this is the year we should really step it up. We look at this year as our coming-out year. We’re a team that we think should go pretty far in the tournament (NCAA).
“We were glad to win conference last year, go to the tournament, that was good experience for us. But we expect to be at least Sweet 16 every year.”The battle against Notre Dame might go down as “exhibition,” but the only thing exhibition about Lobos vs. Irish is that misleading word. People will remember who wins this game; who loses it.
The Lobos look at a win against Notre Dame as one step in a long series of steps that will establish them as an elite team in 2008 = maybe as elite as the 2005 Lobos, who were College Cup finalists.
“A lot of people have exhibition games just to play a game,” said Brown, a UNM junior. “But Notre Dame is really a big team and this is a big deal for us. I’m sure they feel the same way. We are really tough at home and they know how good we are. It will be a great game.”
The Lobos enter the 2008 season carrying a lot of high expectations. Coach Fishbein also has a lot of talent.
“We have really good players and now our job is to form a cohesive team, a team where people know their roles,” he said. “Notre Dame is a really good team, but they aren’t a better team than us. You want to play teams like this. It’s a great challenge to see where we are early in the season.
“We won’t have the same kind of legs under us as we would in a regular-season game and we probably will play more people than we normally play.
“But our guys probably will put a little more into this (exhibition).”The Irish are a huge test for the Lobos in pre-season, but Notre Dame is one of many tough tests Fishbein has placed before his Lobos.
“Depending on how things play out,” he said, “seven of our first 10 games could be against teams that are Top Ten.”
Brown says the competition in front of this year’s group of Lobos should never be a problem. He believes the Lobos have plenty of talent and plenty of strut.
“Last year, we didn’t get the results we wanted at the end of the year because we never really played up to our potential during the season,” said Brown. “To have a great year this year, all we have to do is play up to our potential. Our our confidence is high.”