SMU (5-3-0, 1-0-0 ACC) vs. Boston College (7-1-1, 0-0-1 ACC)
Washburne Stadium - Dallas, Texas
Sunday, Sept. 15 | 1 p.m. (CT)
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DALLAS (SMU) – The SMU women's soccer team is coming off a big win in its ACC debut and will try to double up when it hosts Boston College at 1 p.m. Sunday.

After taking a 1-0 lead into halftime, the Mustangs (5-3, 1-0) scored three goals in the second half to defeat Syracuse 4-1. Ever since the conference move was announced SMU head coach Nicole Nelson has tried to keep things business as usual.

Even so, it was a special moment to win the first ACC game.

"It felt great. It is still a ridiculously tough conference, but we will celebrate this historic first win in the ACC," Nelson said.

Truth Byars netted her third goal of the season in the 11th minute. That would be all the scoring in the first half.

It didn't take long into the second half for the Mustangs to get momentum on their side. Sierra Cota-Yarde made a big save and Liz Eddy scored on a long strike less than a minute later. Emma Alvord would score twice, with a Syracuse penalty in between, to seal the Mustangs victory.

Alvord scored once last season, but has had chances. She went to work this offseason trying to do better with those chances. She put all that work on display Thursday night.

"It felt great, but, it's all about the team," Alvord said. "I'm willing to be in any position to help the team. If I don't get any of the glory and it's all assists, I'm fine with that. It's fun seeing my teammates score, but to be able to score after struggling to score for so long felt really nice and relieving. We had four goals tonight by different people, so it was just good to see that."

SMU was held to just one goal in its previous two games, falling 1-0 against TCU and then 2-1 against Baylor. Thursday looked more like the team that scored 17 goals in its first five games, including at least three in four of them.

"We have a great offense, we have a great midfield," Eddy said. "We've been scoring goals, we're going to keep scoring goals. I think every goal is a confidence booster, but it's going to keep happening and we're going to keep getting better, keep building our chemistry as a team and it'll keep happening."

Now the Mustangs have to show one thing that has been missing this season, consistency. They will try to carry their three-goal second half into Sunday's contest.

"That's the difference with this league, is it is week-in and week-out," Nelson said. " Not that any game is ever easy, but every week is a big challenge. I'm excited to see how they respond on Sunday, but they've been great.  I've said this a lot of times, they care a ton. They care about getting better. They're not satisfied ever, so I think that they'll be up for it."

The Eagles (7-1-1, 0-0-1) are coming off a 2-2 draw against No. 13 Notre Dame in its ACC opener, also on Thursday night, proving Coach Nelson's point. But with games against No. 1 Stanford, No. 2 Virginia, No. 3 Florida State, No. 8 Duke and a Wake Forest team receiving votes all on the schedule, a good result on Sunday is even more important.

"You've got to get as many wins as you can get. It's a game of inches and there are upsets all the time and we like being the underdog sometimes," Nelson said. "There's a lot of parity in the sport, so we hope to pull off some big ones, but at the same time, getting  wins that you feel like are very winnable games is really important."