Lobos picked seventh in preseason soccer poll, snag pair of first place votes

In case you're not entirely sure what to expect from the UNM Lobo women's soccer team this season, you're not alone.

It seems the coaches of the Mountain West can't even come to much of a consensus on how well Heather Dyche's team will fair.

In the Mountain West's 13-team preseason coaches poll released on Wednesday, the Lobos were picked smack in the middle in seventh place. Considering they also received two first place votes, behind only league favorite Utah State (six) and second place Boise State (three), the fact that their total points pulled them down to seventh in the predicted order of finish (first place voted get 13 points, last place gets 1 and the Lobos finished with 80) shows there was a wide variance of opinions about the cherry and silver.

The questions start to get answered Thursday night in the team's home exhibition match against future Mountain West member UTEP. The match is set to start at 7:30 p.m. at the UNM Soccer Complex. Admission is free.

Maybe low expectations should be expected based on back-to-back seasons of finishing 9th in the league standings. On the other hand, as Dyche pointed out when she spoke to media earlier this week, the new world of college athletics that has led to many teams being ravaged by transfers hasn't hit UNM quite as hard as with other programs, leading to a roster that has not just returning players, but returning players who have logged a lot of game minutes in their careers.

"If you look at the age of the players that we started the last two years," Dyche said, "I think at certain points last season we started almost entirely sophomores and freshmen."

Among the returners who are expected to be big pieces for the season are a trio of juniors placed on the league's preseason watch list in forward Nicole Anderson (San Diego, California), defender/midfielder Kennedy Brown (Volcano Vista High School) and defender Fiona Jenkins (Fort Collins, Colorado). All three players started all 18 of UNM's matches last season.

Overall, the Lobos have nine newcomers on a 27-player roster.

The Lobo host the top two teams in the preseason poll in consecutive mid-October matchers — first pace Utah State on Oct. 16 and second place Boise State on Oct. 19.