UNM battles UCLA to 1-1 draw
Fishbein not happy with the outcome
As far rivalries go, New Mexico and UCLA men’s soccer have had a rich — albeit onesided — one. The Bruins, who only once previously came into the match not ranked, had won 11 of the prior 13 meetings.
So ordinarily a draw would have been at least tolerable.
On Wednesday it was not as the No. 24 Lobos squandered an early lead and could not take advantage of their superior play in a 1-1 tie at the UNM Soccer and Track Complex in front of 1,374 fans.
“Pretty disappointing result,” Lobos coach Jeremy Fishbein said. “You don’t get too many opportunities to get those games at home and going into the game, we felt that we were going to be better than them.”
The result stretches the unbeaten streak of the Lobos (8-3-2) to six games, but a win over the nationally recognized
power program of UCLA (6-51) would have been a nice reward.
“We created a lot of chances,” Fishbein said. “We defended well and had the better of the game. It’s disappointing. And that’s good. That’s the mark of a good team when you’re disappointed to get a tie with UCLA.”
The Lobos took the lead in the 15th minute when defender Aaron Herrera, New Mexico’s mainstay on the USA national U-20 team, caught Bruins goalkeeper Kevin Silva cheating a bit off his line and bombed in a shot from a step inside midfield.
“I know that keeper,” Herrera said. “He actually plays on the younger national team. I know he likes to sit off his line because he likes to be a sweeper keeper back there. I picked up my head a couple of times and saw him and on that one I saw that I had some space so I just took my touch and went for it and luckily it went it in.”
It was Herrera’s team-leading fifth goal of the season, but he’d never scored one quite like that before.
“Only in training,” he said. “Never in a game.”
Six minutes into the second half, the Bruins tied it after a foul when Brian Iloski delivered a pinpoint service that Matthew Powell headed in.
“Definitely disappointing,” Herrera said. “It’s always disappointing when you have a lead and you give that lead up and end up with a tie.”
The Lobos got a bit of a break in the 84th minute when Anderson Asiedu was ejected with a red card, which gave New Mexico the freedom to press forward more without worrying too much about a counter attack. But it was not enough for UNM to convert another chance.
“It’s not that easy,” Fishbein said. “I think that’s misleading. Just being up one man against a team like that is not going to change anything incredibly. They defended really well and they were good on the ball. They were a fun team to watch. They tried to play out of everything, They have skilled players.”
New Mexico also had to try to cover for missing forward Sam Gleadle, who is still out with a minor knee issue and was replaced up top by a combination of Luke Lawrence and Alex Vedamanikam.
“The two guys we played up front, Alex is a little more pace, he runs the channels and Luke is a little bit more of a hold up player,” Fishbein said. “We didn’t get fantastic play out of any of our attackers (Wednesday). They were good but they weren’t great and that’s what it was going to take to break that game open.”