Nov. 17, 2008
It is a feel-bad feeling that senior Jack Smithson thinks the University of New Mexico soccer team might do well to take into the 2009 season. A feeling of what could have been hit all Lobos in the gut Monday afternoon at the Coaches Bar & Grill as they watched the NCAA Men’s Soccer Selection Show and the name “New Mexico” never appeared on the bracket.
“They are going to remember this feeling, the younger guys,” said Smithson. “That might motivate them. We’re pretty disappointed. We shot ourselves in the foot losing to Cal-Poly. You have to take care of the games you should win.”
Cal-Poly was one of the lower seeds that crawled into the NCAA bracket as an at-large team, possibly snatching a spot away from UNM.
“The one that really sticks out in my mind is Cal-Poly got in,” said Lobos coach Jeremy Fishbein. “We had a better RPI. We had some bigger wins. But it must have come down to head-to-head. They beat us here 2-to-1. It was a game in which we didn’t show up.
“It was tough to swallow, but we created our own situation.”
Fishbein and his Lobos felt if they won their final two games against Air Force and Denver, the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation champs, that the selection committee would hand the Lobos an at-large bid. It didn’t happen.
“We were up and down the whole year, but the last ten games we started playing more as a team and were playing well,” said Smithson.
You could see the disappointment on the Lobos’ faces when the final spots in the bracket were filled and UNM was not on the board. You could see a lot of pain and frustration, too.
“I thought we had a goot shot,” said Fishbein. “It wasn’t guaranteed by any means, but I was hoping for the best. It’s disappointing. We beat two of the top ten seeds. We had some great wins, but there were some inconsistencies this year and that came back to haunt us.
“It’s hard to know what to say (to the players). It’s all ourselves. It’s all about accountability. The unfortunate thing is we felt we were one of the better teams in the country, especially down the stretch.”
The Lobos finished the season 11-6-2, second in the MPSF with a 7-3-0 mark. The Lobos were looking to make their fifth consecutive NCAA Tournament and their seventh in the last nine years. The MPSF’s automatic bid went to Denver as the league champions.