For half of Saturday afternoon's match against Mount St. Joseph, Franklin men's soccer looked as if it were on a glide path to its first HCAC victory in two years.

Unfortunately for the Grizzlies, things took a turn for the worse in the second half as the Lions rallied to steal a 4-3 win at Faught Stadium.

"We should have won the game," Franklin coach Josh Hughes said. "Threw away three points today. It's frustrating, but that's athletics, I guess."

Franklin (1-9, 0-2) stormed out of the gate and scored twice in the first 6:27 of the match. Theo Sasso rocketed a shot from about 35 yards out into the upper right corner of the net for an early 1-0 lead. Just 1:45 later, Lane Trump took a feed from fellow freshman Enzo Crivari and punched it in. That two-goal advantage held through halftime.

Less than three minutes into the second half, though, the tide turned when MSJ was awarded a penalty kick and converted. The Lions then netted the equalizer with 24:16 left in regulation and took advantage of a failed clearance to score a go-ahead goal with 15:53 remaining.

Lucas Flores ripped a low shot through traffic and into the net with 9:24 left, tying the match. The Grizzlies tried to keep the pressure on, but Mount St. Joseph broke the deadlock first, with Brennan Lewis' second goal of the match providing the winning margin with 2:19 on the clock. The Lions outshot Franklin 11-3 after halftime.

Jaime Silva made seven saves in defeat for the Grizzlies, whose last conference win came against MSJ on Sept. 30, 2023.

"We got to see some of what we could do when we're playing well," Hughes said. "First half we played well, especially the first 20 minutes. ... But we just waste periods of games. We threw it away today; that's the bottom line."

The Grizzlies travel to Rose-Hulman on Wednesday night.