Photo by Jake McNeill: Marshall defender Austin Chepa kicks the ball during the first half of a Big South Conference boys soccer game against St. Peter on Thursday in Marshall.

MARSHALL — A pair of second-half goals from Ali Syed led the Marshall boys soccer team to a comeback victory over St. Peter in Big South Conference play on Thursday. After facing a one-goal deficit at the break, the Tigers came back in the second half to even their record on the season with a 4-2 win.

“We heard that they’re a tough team, so we had to try 110% today,” Marshall head coach Tony Correa said, adding that he felt his team came out strong despite a few mistakes due to St. Peter’s counterattacks and speed. “We just had to be smarter than them at that point because we’re not always going to win those physical battles… We have to hold the ball and just make sure that everyone’s on the same page. Yesterday, we had a very good practice of how to go into the rest of this week and our tough game next week against Worthington, and basically the end of the story is that today had to be that win.”

Sayid came up with the go-ahead goal for Marshall just over halfway through the second half, scoring from the left half of the field inside the box off a feed from Isaiah Argueta to give Marshall a 3-2 lead, its first advantage of the night. His first goal of the game also came just five minutes after the break, sending a screamer just under the crossbar from 25 yards out.

St. Peter broke the game open in the 17th minute. While Marshall had dominated possession in the attacking third up until that moment, Levi Gilbertson capitalized on the Saints’ first opportunity of the day. With just the keeper to beat on a fast break, he beat him off the dribble and tapped it into the goal for a 1-0 lead.​

With 3:39 remaining in the first half, Steven Arais received a pass from Isaiah MacMurchy across the box and zinged it right back into the goal to tie up the game at one goal apiece. Yet, Gilbertson nudged in his second goal of the day just 90 seconds later to give St. Peter a one-goal cushion heading into halftime.

The message at halftime for Marshall was to just stay aggressive and continue getting off good shots, Correa said, and that the team trusts its defense and goalies to keep working and continue to do better.

Coby Guenther notched his third goal of the season in the 75th minute, rocketing a shot from 40 yards out into the top shelf to give Marshall a two-goal cushion.

Goalkeeper Jameson Cornell made four saves for the Tigers on the day.

Marshall (2-2) will play its third match in four days tonight, taking on Morris Area at 5 p.m.

“Everyone’s respecting their roles and each other’s responsibilities. Going into tomorrow, we’re just going to keep building on it and keep everyone’s confidence going into next week,” Correa said. “I feel like at the end of the day, we have the team to really compete with anyone. The tough games we had last week, I thought we played well. We’ve been working on those mistakes and it paid off this week.”