The Lobos (7-4-2, 1-3-0) were looking for their first win of their Conference USA season against UAB Blazers (4-8-0, 1-3-0) and they found what they where looking for in dramatic fashion. It has been a surprise that after their great start to the regular season the Lobos would start the conference season 0-3-0 and be in trouble of missing the NCAA Tournament. The Lobos needed a win and hopefully this will be the beginning of a long winning streak over the final four conference matches.
From the first whistle, it appeared that the Lobos were the better side, applying pressure from the very beginning of the game and controlling the play. But, in the 9th minute of the match, a broken play off a missed clearance found the foot of Ian Svantesson who beat Jason Beaulieu for his sixth goal of the season and a 1-0 Blazers lead. It was a tough goal to allow and it made Lobo fans think, “Not again!” To everyone’s relief, neither team scored the rest of the half, giving the Blazers a 1-0 lead at the half.
The Lobos found themselves in a deep hole right after the second half whistle blew, when the Blazers found their second goal of the match 18 seconds in. UAB’s Freddy Ruiz scored his fifth goal of the season off of assists from Svantesson and Berry Sonnenschein, giving the Blazers a 2-0 lead with just over 44 minutes remaining in the match. After this goal, it was all Lobos and it didn’t take long at all for them to make the score 2-1. In the 51st minute, Josh Goss sent a ball into the 18 yard box where it found the head of Francesco Casucci, who was able to flick the header past the goalkeeper for his second goal of the season. As soon as this goal was scored, it really felt like the Lobos were going to control the rest of the match and come back to win. Soon after, the Lobos were able to find the equalizer, when in the 60th minute, after a foul committed by the Blazers right outside the 18 yard box on the left side gave the Lobos a free kick, Casucci lined up and made a beautiful strike that the goalkeeper could do nothing to stop. This gave Casucci his second goal of the match and tied the match at 2-2.
In the 64th minute, it was very apparent how this match was going to end when Blazers player Chandler Stroupe picked up two yellow cards in less than two minutes to send him off the pitch, forcing UAB to play a man down for the last 26 minutes of the match. It didn’t take the Lobos long to take advantage of this, when in the 72nd minute, Casucci sent a ball inside the 6 yard box where Chris Wehan was able to get Sam Gleadle a wide open shot in front of the goal, giving the Lobo his first career goal and the Lobos its first lead of the match, 3-2. In the last 18 minutes of the match, UAB never really had a chance to score and it took a few nice saves to keep the Lobos from scoring another goal. Towards the end of the game, Casucci just missed a hat trick when the keeper was able to get a finger on his shot to redirect the ball out of bounds. The final whistle blew to give the Lobos their first Conference USA win of the season, one with a lot of positives that the players and coaches can take out of this match.
Stats:
Shots: 20 to 7, Lobos. The Lobos outshot the Blazers 14 to 3 in the second half
Shots on Goal: 5 to 3, Lobos
Saves: 2 to 1, Blazers
Corner Kicks: 9 to 2, Lobos
Player of the Match: Francesco Casucci, New Mexico, with is two goals and an assist in one half of action.
Casucci Named Conference Player of the Week:
Francesco Casucci was named Conference Player of the Week for his brilliant match, which led to the 3-2 come-from-behind win over UAB. It is Casucci’s first career conference award and I expect that this won’t be the last for the freshman midfielder. Casucci also became just the third Lobo player to score multiple goals this season, joining Wehan (9 goals) and Niko Hansen (2 goals).
Other Interesting Tidbits:
- New Mexico hasn’t scored in both halves of a match this season
- New Mexico has only scored first half goals in two matches
- Wehan got his first assist of the season
- Both players that scored goals played less than 50 minutes in the match
- New Mexico improved to 5-1-2 at UNM Soccer Complex this season
Up Next:
The Lobos head up to Huntington, West Virginia to take on Marshall (4-8-0, 0-5-0) this Friday night. It will be important for the Lobos to get the win to improve to 2-3-0 in conference play. Without a win, the Lobos will see their chances of a national seed in the NCAA Tournament start to disappear.