SMU’s Alyssa Pembroke (No. 4) battles for the ball against Oral Roberts’ Tamara Waller (No. 6) during Sunday’s game. The Mustangs defeated the Golden Eagles 4-0 at Westcott Field. SMU is now 7-2-1 on the season, and begin conference play on Friday night against UTEP. (Daneya Ammon)

The Mustangs out-scored their opponents 6-0 in their two games last week, defeating TCU 2-0 and the Oral Roberts University Golden Eagles 4-0.

Senior Olivia O’Rear had two more outstanding games, scoring two goals and with one assist. O’Rear noted a slow start to her season, but knew that, “once [she] got the first goal the rest were going to come,” and come they did. After a four-goal week two weeks ago, O’Rear followed it up with another impressive showing. O’Rear has catapulted herself to the top of the points list for SMU. O’Rear also leads the team in shots and shots on goal.

According to head coach, John Cossaboon, “this weekend was all about preserving what we had done the first half of the season, and sometimes that’s harder to deal with pressure wise.”

Sophomore goalkeeper Ashley Gunter also played strong last week. Gunter posted a shutout in the game against TCU, her fourth of the year and held ORU for all 65 minutes she was in net. The performance earned her conference and national recognition.

Gunter was named the Conference-USA Co-Defensive Player of the Week and was also named to the topdrawersoccer.com National Team of the Week.

Krystal Bailey and Katie Leonard also performed well this past week. Bailey scored the game winner against TCU and assisted on a goal against ORU. Leonard assisted on the first goal of the game against the Golden Eagles and scored the third goal of the game.

It was Alissa Ireland who started the scoring against ORU and Jena Lind who completed it with her first goal of the season.

SMU will now start conference play against the University of Texas-El Paso. Cossaboon notes the existence of “a top and a bottom in every conference, but ours is kind of squeezed. Anybody can beat anybody.” UTEP has had some success in the past years. “Last year was a second round NCAA playoff team just like us,” he said. “There has always been a history of hard battles and that’s the way we’re going to start it off.”

The Mustangs will play C-USA opponent UTEP on Friday at 7 p.m. at Westcott field.