The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
UAB
New Mexico
UAB Narrowly Loses 1-0 to New Mexico
10/26/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Soccer
Final Stats (PDF)
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The UAB men’s soccer team lost despite a well-played game on Wednesday night. The Blazers posted 14 shots and six saves but fell 1-0 to Conference USA foe New Mexico. The Green & Gold are now 6-7-3 this year and 2-4-1 in conference while the Lobos improve to 8-6-1 and 2-3-1.
Before the match, UAB honored Joe Kuzminsky, James Ngoe, Henrique Sposito, William White, and Lars Willemse for Senior Night. All five players started in the contest.
“Each one of them brings something special to UAB,” said UAB head coach Mike Getman on his senior class. “They are just five great people that I’m really proud we had at UAB.”
The Blazers came firing out of the gates with nine first half shots. The biggest opportunity came in the 25th minute when a ripper from Massimo Ferrin outside the box required a save and Philip Makinde’s shot off the rebound was blocked.
UAB nearly got on the scoredboard first in the 67th minute. Tarnue Tyler did a great job to create an open chance with after sliding the ball past a defender on a move but the Lobos goalkeeper got a foot to the ball to stop the shot from hitting the net.
New Mexico struck shortly after that. The Lobos counter attack game pushed the ball up field quickly in the 75th minute and Devin Boyce let a shot rip from over 30 yards away from the net and tucked it into the left post for the lone goal of the contest.
“I thought the guys played really well and played hard,” stated Getman. “We could have stepped up a little quicker on their goal. But, overall, I thought the guys played really well.”
The game provided much more excitement over the final 15 minutes. Two incredible individual efforts kept the Blazers within a goal in the 78th minute. The first was by Kuzminsky who erased an error by the UAB defense that provided a one-on-one opportunity Boyce. The rebound got away from the netminder and provided what seemed to be a wide-open opportunity for Sam Gleadle, but Mathieu Laurent made a sprawling, last second play to keep the deficit at one goal.
UAB pressured continuously over the last 10 minutes, living in the Lobos half of the field but were unable to produce the tying goal.
UAB finished with 14 shots, its most since shooting 18 times versus Howard on September 27, while Kuzminsky stopped six shots. Willemse led the team with five shots Ferrin, Makinde, and Tyler each had a pair of strikes.
“I thought we controlled the play from the opening whistle,” said Getman. “We outshot them, controlled the possession, we outplayed them, plain and simple. In soccer, that’s not always good enough. One goal wins a lot of times and they got one good chance, but I was really pleased with the way the team played.”
The Blazers will now have 10 days off before it closes its regular season with a road game against FIU on Saturday, November 5 at 6 p.m. CT. They currently sit in sixth place in Conference USA by one point. The top seven teams make the conference tournament.
