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New Mexico Drops Its Fourth Straight Game
Lobos need to turn things around.
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The latest loss is to Wyoming
The New Mexico Lobos traveled Saturday to Laramie, Wyoming, to take on the Wyoming Cowboys at War Memorial Stadium in front of an announced crowd of 22,884.
New Mexico hoping to get a badly needed win against a very solid & well coached Cowboy team. Bob Davie’s Lobos (2-5, 0-3 in MWC) suffered their fourth straight loss on the road against Craig Bohls Cowboys (5-2, 2-1).
The Lobo defense did a fine job playing very physical to matchup to the Cowboys with some solid defensive stops. For being 19.5-point underdogs, they did a very good job at keeping the score low.
Now in all fairness to the Wyoming Cowboys, two of their leading blockers Eric Abojei and Alonzo Velazquez were out with knee injuries.
The Lobo defense would play very physical with hard hits on the dive plays, especially Lobo middle linebacker Alex Hart with some great hits on the Cowboys when running up the middle.
Also Lobo linebacker Alex “Mo” Vainikolo had a monster game with nine tackles, one sack and 1½ tackles for losses. New Mexico linebacker Jacobi Hearn also had eight tackles, two sacks and two tackles for losses.
But once again the Lobo offense continues to struggle to score points when it counts or convert critical third downplays. New Mexico was able to drive down the field but on critical downs, they came up short.
Surprisingly, the Lobos would outgain the Cowboys in total yardage. The Lobos would end the game with 372 total yards to the Cowboys 345 total yards. Wyoming lead in the rushing category 55-259 to the Lobos 37-169 yards.
The Lobos leading rusher belonged to Ahmari Davis 14-86 yards followed by Bryson Carroll with 12-55 yards. New Mexico quarterback Sheriron Jones who started the game would finish the game with 9-of-17 for 153 yards.
But on the very first offensive play on the Lobo 20-yard line Jones would keep the ball on a run play and fumble the ball. The Lobos dodged a bullet after the turnover was reversed as his knee was down.
So the first play of the game, Cowboy linebacker Cassh Maluia picks the ball up to run in the endzone for what could have been a touchdown on the very first play of the game.
Also, Sophomore Bryce Carroll would fumble the ball and it was the game’s lone turnover.
It would result resulted in the Cowboy’s first-quarter touchdowns for the only points in the first half.
For the Cowboys: Xazavian Valladay (127 yards, 1 TD, 33 carries) and quarterback Sean Chambers (117 yards, 1 TD, 18 carries) leading the way for the Pokes.
But as well as the offense did as far as numbers, the scoring was once again very minimal as far as scoring, especially touchdowns.
Two bright spots in the game were how well the Lobo defense would show up and when Quarterback Tavaka Tuioti came in the game. The Lobos were trailing 20-3 and 9:40 on left in-game and he threw a 21-yard touchdown pass to Aaron Molina.
Molina who made one of his trademark catches in the end zone with a defender all over him.
So bottom line if the Lobo defense can continue the upward trend of getting better and the Lobo defense can score some touchdowns, the Lobos could win a game or two.
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