In sports there’s physical play, excessively rough play and dirty play.

Then there’s criminal assault, which comes to mind after a University of New Mexico soccer player’s outrageous actions on Thursday.

In the Mountain West Conference Soccer Championship semifinal, the Brigham Young University women’s team ran into an out-of-control human buzz saw named Elizabeth Lambert.

Fans accept that some physical contact is part of the game. But Lambert went way beyond the norm. In videos that have gone viral across the sports world, she’s been exposed for what she is. And it’s not a pretty picture. (See the video online at playerattack.notlong.com.)

Lambert shoved, pushed and tripped BYU players. In one incident, she hauled off and slugged a Cougar in the back. Her greatest claim to shame was grabbing the ponytail of BYU’s Kassidy Shumway from behind and whiplashing her to the ground.

Dirty play does not usually constitute a crime. But this time it does.

Lambert showed a pattern of violence and premeditation throughout the game that gives the lie to her public excuse that she was merely caught up in the emotion of the moment. On the contrary, she was just plain vicious, and she knew it.

The ponytail moment was not part of any play. The ball was somewhere downfield, the victim’s back to the criminal. Shumway couldn’t have seen the assault coming. She had no chance.

Lambert had positioned herself behind Shumway, then blatantly grabbed Shumway’s hair and yanked her violently to the ground. The move was brutal. This sort of thing has no place in athletics.

It was a criminal act, pure and simple.

It’s one thing when a player overreacts in the heat of action. For example, violent aggression might be understandable when hockey players are battling along the boards. But it’s something else when the aggression occurs far away from the main action.

This wasn’t just a punch or kick that could leave a bruise but an attack that could have broken a neck or even killed.

To the credit of UNM, coach Kit Vela suspended Lambert indefinitely and said that “her actions clearly crossed the line of fair play and good sportsmanship.”

“Liz’s conduct on the field against BYU was completely inappropriate,” UNM Vice President for Athletics Paul Krebs said. “There is no way to defend her actions.”

Lambert “apologized” in a written statement prepared, no doubt, by the school. “I let my emotions get the best of me in a heated situation,” she said.

That’s not good enough, not when another player’s life and health were at stake.

When athletes walk onto a field, they don’t leave civilization and the rule of law behind. And when dirty play violates the norms of civil society, the law should step in. At times it has. Professional hockey players, for example, have been criminally charged in incidents of extreme violence on the ice, though few have been convicted.

Criminal charges should be brought in this case. When a player crosses the line repeatedly, flagrantly and deliberately; and when the prospect of serious injury arises; and when the act is clearly unrelated to game action; and when the victim is deliberately blind-sided and unable to respond, the criminal code should be invoked.

If Lambert had done the same things to Shumway in any other public venue, it would be a matter for the police and courts. An athletic field should not provide legal immunity for outrageous, violent conduct like this, and Shumway should make sure that it doesn’t. She should file a criminal complaint.

Meanwhile, University of New Mexico officials could send a positive message to athletes everywhere by throwing Lambert off the squad for the rest of her collegiate career. It would fitting, and would help keep a lid on collegiate sports violence.

Lambert could take her testosterone to another sport — like mixed martial arts.