Dream come true: Aggie soccer team heading to WAC Tournament

By Teddy Feinberg, Las Cruces Sun-News, N.M.

Nov. 3--LAS CRUCES -- The New Mexico State Aggies have already surpassed most of everyone's expectations in 2009.

And they met theirs.

At the outset of the season, head coach Michael Needham said that his team's goal was to reach the Western Athletic Conference tournament.

After a 9-8-1 overall record and a 4-3-1 mark in conference play, the team will in fact head north to Boise, Idaho for the WAC tourney on Thursday, ready for their 12:30 p.m. matchup with the University of Nevada.

The Aggies will go in as the competition's No. 5 seed, while Nevada is ranked No. 4 in the six-team tournament.

"Our goal now is to win our first game," Needham said. "Our goal now is to get into the semifinal. And we'll re-evaluate our goals as we move forward."

To a degree, the Aggies are playing with house money. A first year program in the WAC soccer landscape, NMSU was a mystery team heading into the season. But the club proved to be resourceful, recruiting a solid foundation and sneaking up on a handful of programs in claiming a tournament berth.

"We're just so stoked that we're going," junior midfielder Baili Foutz said. "No one thought we would be here but us. Now we've got to go and keep it going."

At the midway point of the season the Aggies went on a tear, losing just once in nine matches. Seven of those contests ended in Aggie victories while the another finished in a tie.

Recently, however, the team has cooled off, dropping three straight. One of those losses came

to Nevada, a 1-0 overtime defeat last Friday. Not that any of that matters to Needham.

"I don't think any of that really makes a difference now," Needham said of his team's three-match skid. "That's the beauty of the conference tournament. Everyone has the same record at this point, everyone is playing for the same thing.

"It's just what I told our players. When we started the season, no one respected us. Then, we won a bunch and we started getting that respect. Now, three-straight losses, and we're back to where we started. In a way, I like being overlooked."

It will be the Aggies first trip to Boise this year, as the Broncos came down to Las Cruces earlier in the season. The weather forecast for Thursday's game calls for sunny skies, with temperatures hovering around 70 degrees.

"Our team, we can handle pretty much anything," Foutz said. "We feel like we're built for the road. We get to see that blue turf. We're excited to go up there and play."

As for facing the Wolf Pack, the Aggies are excited about that too.

"We can't come out slow," goalkeeper Katie Graul said. "We can't come out halfway. We gotta come out hard from the start.

"We made the conference tournament and we've worked so hard to get here. We're not just going to let that slip away."

Teddy Feinberg can be reached at tfeinberg@lcsun-news.com; (575) 541-5455

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