The SMU women's soccer team enters its first ACC game of the season coming off back-to-back wins and as winners in five of its last six.

It is the kind of progress the Mustangs were hoping to make coming into the season. And that's exactly what they have done heading into Thursday's game at Syracuse.

"Overall, they're building good momentum week to week," SMU head coach Nicole Nelson said. "I've said this from the start, they care a lot about getting better every week. The standard is high and they keep applying the things that we're working on and building a foundation of getting a little bit better in a lot of areas each week."

Of the nine players SMU added this offseason, six have started at least one game, with Claire Jones and Sydney Japic starting all seven. Mixing that group with the returners, including Nyah Rose, Hali Hartman, Lydia Ungashick and Maura Yumul, who have started every game they have been available for, is a process.

That process has been a successful one.

"I think, whenever you have 'a number of new players', whether it be freshmen or transfers, it's natural for it to take a second to click," graduate student Sammy Nieves said. "But I think we've definitely built a lot more chemistry than where we were at the beginning of the season.

As they have become more comfortable on the field together, they have been able to do more. That has equaled success.

"What has grown throughout the course of this nonconference segment is our confidence each week," Nelson said. "We've gotten more courageous and willing to take risk in the final third. We're creating good opportunities, and they keep building on it."

Those risks have paid off. The Mustangs have scored six goals during the current two-game winning streak, including a 3-0 victory against Houston Christian and are coming off a 3-1 win against Sam Houston. Over the five wins in a six-game stretch, the goal total is 14. 

Rose, Lydia Ungashick, Lindsay Nicholson and Nicole Stryker have two goals each, while six others have one goal for the Mustangs.

"We've been talking a lot about the speed of play," Nelson said. "On the build, the speed of play and the tempo, we like to get in rhythm, and when we do, it all comes together. We are doing a good job getting runs in the box and making sure that we hit our spots. It starts with speed of play and getting into our rhythm and trying to do what we do, keep the ball, build and be creative and create an unpredictable attack.

Thursday is the time for that preparation to meet the first ACC opportunity.

"We're going to take it one game at a time, Nelson said.  "This group brings our standard day in and day out, so the process is the same week in and week out," Nelson said. "We have a lot of opportunities to get  big wins in the conference, to get wins that help us reach our goals in the postseason."

"We're ready. Nieves said. "I think this team's been executing in a lot of areas and growing a lot as well. I think we're prepared and we're ready to go and get after it."
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