The Oglethorpe men's lacrosse team had a tough night Friday in Memphis, Tennessee, dropping an SAA contest to Rhodes 21-4. The Stormy Petrels were down just 5-2 at the end of the first quarter, but the homestanding Lynx pulled away after that, dropping the visitors to 0-11 on the season overall and 0-3 in SAA play.

The Petrels hung in the game over the course of the first quarter. Rhodes picked up the opening goal just over a minute into the game, but the Petrels answered just over a minute later with a tally of their own. Junior attackman Andrew Houghton tied the game off an assist from freshman middie Nathaniel Gillespie with 12:32 remaining in the opening period. The Lynx tallied back-to-back goals directly after that, but Oglethorpe again answered with 8:52 left in the quarter, as Houghton found the cage again to make it 3-2. Rhodes scored a couple more goals over the remainder of the quarter to take a 5-2 lead headed into the second.

Rhodes was able to pull away from there, though. They scored 10 consecutive goals in the second quarter and a total of 13 consecutive before Oglethorpe was able to break up the run in the third. The visitors scored back-to-back goals to end the quarter, Houghton finding paydirt again with 3:37 left and sophomore attackman John Hood hitting the target with four seconds left in the period. That just cut the Rhodes lead to 18-4, though, and the Lynx finished the game off with three more goals in the fourth.

Houghton's hat trick came on his only three shots of the game. Hood led the team with six ground balls while freshman defenseman Andrew Kwapil led all Petrels with four caused turnovers.

For the game, Rhodes outshot Oglethorpe 43-6, including 29-6 on goal. They won 22 of 28 faceoffs, forced 25 Oglethorpe turnovers while committing 18 themselves, and scooped 62 ground balls to Oglethorpe's 26. The Petrels were 11 of 20 on clear attempts to the Lynx's 14 of 15.

"Rhodes is a good team and it just wasn't our night tonight," said Oglethorpe head coach Nathan Young. "We'll head to Arkansas on Sunday and look to try and get a victory there. We know we're shorthanded, but we have to keep competing."

The Petrels will head to Conway, Arkansas, to take on Hendrix Sunday at 1 p.m. Eastern. After that, they'll return home for their final three games of the regular season against Centre, Birmingham-Southern and Millsaps.