New Mexico Lobos Women Soccer – at Mountain West Championships
When/Where: Tuesday thru Saturday – at San Diego State
Tuesday Quarterfinals – SDSU Sports Deck
Game One: 4 p.m. (PT), No. 3 New Mexico vs. No. 6 Boise State.
Game Two: 7 p.m. (PT) No. 4 Colorado College vs. No. 5 Utah State
Thursday’s Semifinals: Game One winner vs. No. 2 Wyoming, 4 p.m.; Game Two winners vs. No. 1 San Diego State, 7 p.m.
By Richard Stevens – Senior Writer/GoLobos.com
There are numbers that help define Lobo keeper Cassie Ulrich. You can toss out her GPA, her minutes played as a Lobo, her goal-against average and you will be impressed. Ulrich is an exceptional soccer player.
But there is a “rest of the story” that defines the inner strength, the drive and the courage of a young woman – really, a kid – who walked a tough path, but turned it into a road to excellence as an athlete, as a student and as an inspirational leader for a band of Lobos.
“We know Cassie’s story and you can’t do anything but admire her,” said Lobo Coach Kit Vela, whose No. 3 seed Lobos play No. 6 Boise State in the Mountain West Championships at 4 p.m. (PT) Tuesday in San Diego.
“She is an incredible person who overcame obstacles that most of us simply do not have to deal with. We are so proud of her. You don’t get kids like Cassie very often.”
At Rio Rancho, Ulrich’s week was not typical for a high school kid. She went to class. She went to soccer practice. She worked 30-to-40 hours a week at Albertsons because Ulrich was one of the bread winners for her family.
“I’ve been on my own financially since I was 17,” said the redshirt junior. “I had a heavy load. I had to grow up pretty fast. I had to support myself and help support my family. I was paying my car insurance, cell phone bill, health bill, paying household stuff.
“My last couple of years in high school, I bounced around for a while, living with friends.”
For sure, Ulrich was not born with a silver spoon at her lips and you might think that maybe she grew up with a chip on her shoulder. She didn’t. You might think with all those hours at a grocery store that her grades suffered. She graduated from Rio Rancho High with a 4.1 GPA.
“I know how much I’ve handled,” said Ulrich. “I know the level I’ve excelled at under a certain amount of adversity and stress and I know that I can keep doing it.”
Said Vela: “She had the type of background that would either break a kid or toughen them up. She rose above it.”
Here’s one typical day for Ulrich as a Lobo: Get up in time to eat and get to keeper training at 8:15 .m.; go to class at UNM; come back for soccer practices; go put in a work shift at Lobo Village; work in some studying. She carries a 4.12 GPA into her fourth year at UNM.
“I’m pretty booked,” Ulrich said.
Ulrich’s high school days can’t be described as typical, but neither can her rise to D-I soccer. A lot of soccer players start the game before they enter grade school. Ulrich said she started full time “around 11.” She didn’t play as a freshman at Rio Rancho and didn’t make varsity when she did try out as a sophomore.
“I’m pretty sure I deserved to be on varsity,” she said. “I was really annoyed I didn’t make it. At tryouts, I thought I did very well, but the girl that beat me out was on varsity the previous year. She had that seniority.”
Ulrich started playing club ball at a higher level in her early teens, but her love of the game — and the goal — had a rough beginning.
“I started in rec soccer at a really low level,” she said. “We would lose games 5-0, 6-0, 7-0, 8-0 pretty consistently. I remember one time in Los Alamos looking at the coach when it was 8-0 and asking with my eyes, ‘take me out, take me out.’
“But I got a lot of experience. I took a lot of shots and I had to learn quick.”
Coach Vela and her assistant/husband Jorge Vela saw Ulrich play club ball after she moved up to a higher level. They liked what they saw. They saw a player with fight.
The fight Ulrich has displayed most of her life is a fight Vela’s Lobos have put forth throughout the 2014 season. They are in San Diego with a tough path in front of them in order to claim the MW title and the automatic NCAA berth that comes with the crown. If there are no upsets, UNM has to eventually get past No. 2 Wyoming and No. 1 San Diego State.
“We believe we will win it,” said Ulrich. “It’s something we just know we can do. We are a really good team and I think we are peaking at a great time.”