Oct. 24, 2008
Final Stats | Quotes | Notes | Photo Gallery 
By Richard Stevens – Senior Writer/GoLobos.com
Every once in a while, soccer has those pretty moments. A nice pass leads to a nice pass leads to a sweet goal. It’s like how you practice it, how you visualize it, and for the University of New Mexico Friday night, it was how you beat Stanford 2-1.
The play came with 7:20 left to play and the Lobos knotted in a 1-1 tie with the visiting Cardinal in front of 2,173 at the UNM Soccer Complex.
Lobo Justin Davis found himself near the Stanford 18-yard box, in front of the Cardinal net, with the ball. He tapped it forward to teammate Michael Green, who one-touched it back to Davis and past a Cardinal defender. Davis boomed the ball high past Stanford keeper John Moore. The shot hit the bar, but had the right bounce and slipped into the net.
It was the classic give-and-go. Pretty. Nice soccer. Good teamwork.
“I wish I knew what happened, actually,” Davis joked after the UNM win. “It happened fast. Green flicked a great ball through and their defender kind of misplayed it and somehow I put it off the crossbar. It was a good play.”
The Lobos didn’t actually open the game in dominating fashion as they gave the Cardinal what Davis called a “soft” goal. Stanford’s Tom Montgomery found himself with the ball near the UNM 18-yard box and drilled a hard roller to the right of Lobo keeper Eric Staver. Stanford had a 1-0 lead and Lobos coach Jeremy Fishbein said his team didn’t exactly come back with a lot of fire. Not right away.
“There was a little segment there, where we just, I don’t know, we’re just kind of fragile right now,” he said. “We gave up a goal and kind of flipped out a little bit.”
The Cardinal scored with 15:47 left in the first half. The Lobos got even about five minutes late when P.J. Wilson found the ball floating loose in front of the Stanford net. He scissor kicked the ball into the goal.
“I think Chris Wright headed it back down and it was just sitting there and I put it back in,” said Wilson. The two teams were tied at the half, 1-1.
Davis had an earlier chance to put UNM up 2-1 at the 18:10 mark of the second half. He raced down on the Cardinal net, to the right of their keeper, while being shadowed by a Stanford defender. Davis got off a strong shot that Moore slid to stop and hold. Davis did a much better job of finding the net about 11 minutes later.
“It was good to get a goal in front of a good crowd,” said Davis. “Get people back on our bandwagon, a little bit. Everyone knows Stanford, and it definitely helps our RPI. It was a pretty big win for us.”
The win pushed UNM to 7-5-2 on the year. If the Lobos can win-out the season, they could finish 12-5-2 and possible get some attention for at at-large NCAA bid. However, the best ticket to the postseason is to win the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation title and grab the automatic bid. That finish requires the Lobos to get some help along the way. UNM is 3-2 in the MPSF and Denver, which UNM hosts on Nov. 16, is undefeated in league play at 5-0.
The Lobos play UNLV, Sacramento State, San Jose State and Air Force prior to Denver’s visit. Davis said it would be nice to be on a roll during the back stretch of the season.
“This is a good setup for us, try to get back on a winning note,” he said. “We’ve been playing well, but unlucky a little bit. I think we showed we had a little bit of character in us (vs. Stanford).”
Said Fishbein: “We had some great goals. We came back from a goal down. We were fortunate and we haven’t been fortunate this year. It’s always good to get a win when you don’t play your best.”
The Lobos ended the game with 14 shots while Stanford kicked at the net 13 times. The Cardinal actually had eight shots-on-goal to four for UNM. Stanford had four corner kicks and the Lobos had two. Eric Staver had six saves in the keep for UNM and Moore had two for the Cardinal.
Editor’s note: Richard Stevens is a former Associate Sports Editor and sports columnist for The Albuquerque Tribune. You can reach him at rstevens50@comcast.net. Previous articles are available at The Richard Stevens Corner.