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LAS VEGAS - Sin City became a place of redemption for both UCLA and New Mexico. Both teams played in the Las Vegas Bowl on Wednesday to feel good about themselves after failing to win conference championships. Every player on down to the backup kicker needed a second chance to prove himself. Well, herself, in New Mexico’s case. No, the Lobos didn’t exactly have their masculinity stripped after losing to the Bruins 27-13. They had a woman on their team. And she played. Katie Hnida became the first woman in history to play in a Division I-A football game with her first quarter appearance. The junior kicker had transferred from Colorado, where she had a negative experience and said she would have never gotten to play. Still, Hnida just wouldn’t give up. Fittingly wearing No. 2, she got her second chance with New Mexico after walking on the team and becoming its third-string kicker. After Desmar Black scored on a 55-yard interception return in the first quarter to tie the score at six, New Mexico sent in Hnida, a blonde ponytail dangling out of her helmet, to take the lead with the extra point. “We made the decision to let Katie kick the first extra point,” New Mexico head coach Rocky Long said. “She has been a vital part of this team all year, and we felt that she deserved the opportunity to make a play.” Hnida might have been a woman, but she wasn’t Lady Luck. The kick was low and Brandon Chillar blocked enough of it to have it sail under the crossbar. Rodney Leisle, who provided the key push up the middle, did not realize a woman was trying to score on him. “Wow, I’m just glad we stopped her,” he said with a smile, adding that a girl played kicker on his high school team. “She’s a great kicker,” said UCLA kicker Nate Fikse, who knows Hnida through a mutual friend. “I’ve seen film of her. It just sucks that she didn’t make it.” Fikse’s other friend did make it. UCLA kicker Chris Griffith, who had been benched for his inefficiency for the last five games of the regular season, got his own second chance. After Jarrad Page’s fourth-quarter interception return for a touchdown, Griffith returned to the field to kick one final extra point. Unlike Hnida, he had experience. Griffith had been sitting tied with John Lee for a school-record 135 career extra points. And unlike Hnida, his kick was good. “It was important for me to get the record,” Griffith, a senior, said. “I needed to get that off my shoulders. It was important to have my last game mean something.” “That was surreal for him,” Fikse said. “He hasn’t had his best of seasons. That was just a great way to end it for him.”