Lobo softball peaking at right time in narrative-changing season

Melanie Macias didn't grow up dreaming of being a UNM Lobo softball player.

Why would she? Before this week, the last time the program even played in the postseason was before the Albuquerque native and Volcano Vista graduate was even born.

But Friday, at the UNM Softball Field — in a narrative-changing season for the Lobos — Macias took her turn at donning the hero's hat for a team that has not only clinched a spot in next week's Mountain West softball tournament for the first time since 2006, but appears to be playing its best at the right time.

Macias delivered a bases loaded RBI single in the fifth to seal an 11-3 run rule win over Utah State in five innings — a game-winning moment that came immediately after the visiting Aggies chose to load the bases by pitching around UNM power hitter Miracle McKenzie to get to the less threatening option.

Or so they thought.

"I mean, it fired me up, I'm not gonna lie," Macias said after the game. "I was ready. I trust my preparation. But I also knew, even if I didn't provide, we still had one out and Hayden (Luderer, who was in the on-deck circle) had my back. My team has my back. I have theirs. That's how this has been all year."

UNM jumped all over Utah State Wednesday with a five-run first inning that started with a DeNae Vasquez-Dickson leadoff homer. Macias, who went 3-for-4 with a double and two RBIs in the game, added a first-inning RBI single and Ella Dawson had a two-RBI double in the frame for a 5-0 Lobos lead.

The offensive onslaught followed Thursday's 12-6 thumping of the Aggies that included a four-run first and a four-run second in the game that clinched a guaranteed top-six finish in the Mountain West standings and spot in next week's six-team Mountain West Tournament for the Lobos.

The two wins to start the three-game series means UNM improves to 25-25 on the season and 12-12 in league play, good for fourth place in the standings ahead of Saturday’s final day of the regular season. It also marks the first time in more than a decade the program has reached 25 overall wins, or double digit conference wins, since going 29-25 (13-11 MW) in 2015. The Lobos finished fourth in the Mountain West that season, but the league did not have a conference tournament that year.

Trying to pinpoint the reason for the program's long-awaited rise isn't hard to do, says McKenzie.

"It's all about her setting the culture for this team," McKenzie said of fourth-year coach Nicole Orgeron (formerly Dickson and still called Dickson by many of the players).

"She really allows a space for everybody to be themselves, and you can really have that connection with her open door policy. ... Her belief in us spreads, and I think it's contagious."

Orgeron says she has upmost belief in her team's ability and potential. "Our best softball is still ahead of us," she said Friday. But with a roster loaded with underclassmen, she admits the challenge at times has been trying to figure out how to put such a young roster in the best position for success each week.