The Oglethorpe men's soccer team seemed to have things going their way after falling behind early Saturday to Maryville (Tennessee) on Day 1 of Emory's Sonny Carter Invitational. They scored once on each side of halftime to take a 2-1 lead with 35 minutes to go in the contest. However, a pair of goals from the Scots over the final 20 minutes turned the game in their favor, giving them a 3-2 win and dropping the Stormy Petrels to 0-1 to begin the season.

After allowing the game's opening goal in the 11th minute, the Petrels began to turn things in their favor. They outshot Maryville 9-5 over the course of the opening stanza, putting three of those shots on target. The persistence paid off in the 25th minute when the Petrels won a penalty kick and sophomore midfielder Topher Marshall, the reigning SAA Newcomer of the Year, stepped up and slotted it home to tie the score at 1-1. 

The score remained knotted at halftime, but the Petrels continued pushing for the go-ahead goal into the second half. They found it in the 52nd minute, when freshman forward Hudson Fennell poked home a cross from junior midfielder Josh Hoeft. 

The Petrels maintained their 2-1 lead for the next 20 minutes, but Maryville began to put more pressure on, as they wound up outshooting Oglethorpe 11-5 over the course of the second half. The Scots headed home a corner kick in the 72nd minute to tie the score at 2-2. It remained that way until the 85th minute, when Maryville won a penalty kick of their own. They converted to take a 3-2 lead which they would not relinquish.

Fennell and Marshall each fired three shots, with Marshall putting a pair on goal. Junior goalkeeper Robert Goldin made six saves on the afternoon for the Petrels. 

For the game, the Scots outshot Oglethorpe 16-14, including 9-6 on goal. The Petrels took five corner kicks to Maryville's three.

"We had three individual mistakes in this game that Maryville capitalized on," said Oglethorpe head coach Jon Akin. "We had the game in our grasp, but we need to learn to execute over the full 90 minutes. Outside of that, I thought we played pretty well overall, especially considering it was our first game of the year. It's very early in the season and we're still figuring things out, in some respects. That being the case, I think it's a good thing that we have the chance to get right back out on the field in 24 hours and play again."

The Petrels will take on Texas-Tyler in the second game of their Sonny Carter Invitational Sunday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. from Emory's campus in the Druid Hills neighborhood of Atlanta. After that, they'll travel to Pennsylvania next weekend to take on Messiah and Franklin & Marshall.