Box Score

Wheaton, Ill. - After taking a quick 2-0 early in the first half, Carthage College looked in prime position to spoil Wheaton College's Homecoming game.

But the No. 17-ranked Thunder men's soccer team came roaring back to tie the score by halftime and pulled out the victory in front of the nearly 1,000 fans in attendance by a score of 3-2 on Friday.

Wheaton improved to 10-3-0 and 2-1-0 in CCIW action while Carthage fell to 2-6-4 overall and 1-2-0 in conference.

A persistent rain during the day finally faded away by game time. Despite temperatures in the 40s, it didn't take long for the Red Men to warm up on offense. Aleks Urosevic opened the scoring at 5:29 into the game as he got behind his defender and headed in the cross right in front of the box. Six minutes later, Wheaton got called for a foul in the box and Andew Gamarra responded with a penalty kick goal to put Carthage up 2-0.

The deficit pushed the Wheaton offense into aggressive attack mode immediately. At 15:20, the Thunder scored off a Cory Weaver free kick that was quickly passed from Matt Swartz to Drew Golz, who one touched the ball past the goalie in front of the net to make it 2-1.

The pressure paid off again as Carthage committed their own foul in the box at 34:39 in the first half. Swartz easily slotted the ball past the keeper to knot the score at 2-2.

The physicality of game increased in the second half between the two teams that battled to overtimes in both their matchups last season. A total of five yellow cards were handed out in the game to go with 26 fouls.

Wheaton had five corner kicks in the second half, and they capitalized on the set piece at 60:22 as Swartz found Tyler Risma, who headed the ball into the goal to seize a 3-2 lead.

The Thunder owned a 15-13 shot advantage while the Red Men held the corner kick advantage 6-5. Ryan Seager got the win while making three saves. Taao Scarnato took the loss while making four saves.

Wheaton's next game will be on the road at University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh at 7:00 PM on Oct. 17.

PHOTO GALLERY, WITH PHOTOS FROM MIKE HUDSON & THUNDERPHOTOS.COM