“It’s been fast and furious so far,” said UNM men’s soccer head coach Jeremy Fishbein.
The Lobos, who moved up to seventh in the polls this week, began the 2015 season with a loss against the then-ranked No. 1 UCLA Bruins. UNM went on to tie its second game 2-2 against the University of San Diego, a team ranked No. 18 at the time.
But the third match was the charm for New Mexico.
The Lobos took down then-ranked No. 13 University of California-Santa Barbara 2-1. Since that game, UNM has yet to lose a game and is now on a five-game winning streak.
“Knock on wood, things keep going well,” Fishbein said.
This season’s schedule has featured several ranked opponents, but the Lobos have shown they can play with the big boys. That’s because, according to Fishbein, they are one of the big boys.
Now they have the awards and ranking to prove it.
For the second straight week, the Lobos swept the Conference USA Player of the Week Awards. Forward Niko Hansen was named Offensive Player of the Week, while defender Nicholas Rochowski earned Defensive Player of the Week.
New Mexico has now won six of the eight weekly awards that C-USA has given out this season.
And if the team’s week wasn’t already filled with enough good news, the Lobos found out on Tuesday that they had moved up to the No. 7 spot in the NSCAA college rankings.
Not too shabby, but Fishbein and his players are never ones to settle.
“That’s what we expect, to be a ranked team,” he said. “But we need to play like that every day.”
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Although he describes the top-10 ranking as “flattering,” Fishbein said he thinks it can also be a dangerous spot.
“It gives your opponent that much more incentive, and as soon as you let that get to your head and our players take one second off, it’s costly,” he said. “There were some valuable lessons last year. I think we were ranked fourth or fifth, and we didn’t get into the NCAA Tournament. So that shows you what early season rankings mean: absolutely nothing.”
The Lobos will begin conference play Friday against the South Carolina Gamecocks. Fishbein said to keep their success going, the Lobos are going to have to focus on “concrete things” and not let awards or rankings get to their heads.
According to Fishbein, the team’s focus needs to be solely on the next game and on the next practice, because there are always improvements that can be made.
“I don’t take things for granted,” Fishbein said.” I think we still have to be better. We need to have a little more balance to our attack if we are going to continue to win games against top opponents.”
Isabel Gonzalez is a sports reporter for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on twitter @cisabelg
