The Oglethorpe men's basketball team fell behind early to the visiting Birmingham-Southern Panthers and could never catch up Sunday afternoon in Dorough Field House, falling to the visitors, 86-59, in the end. The loss drops the Stormy Petrels to 15-6 overall, 6-4 in SAA play.

The Panthers jumped out to a 12-1 lead in the early-going Sunday. It was a deficit from which the Petrels would never recover, as they were never able to tie the game or take the lead. They did keep it close for much of the first half, trailing by just eight with 4:38 remaining in the period. However, Birmingham-Southern ended the half with a spurt that gave them an 18-point advantage at the break. Then, the Petrels began to come back in the second half, as well, cutting the deficit to 13 points with 15:42 left, but the Panters were able to push the lead out from there and Oglethorpe never again got close.

Birmingham-Southern delivered a blistering shooting performance, converting on 56.7 percent of their attempts from the field and 55.6 percent of their attempts from three-point range. By contrast, the Petrels struggled offensively for much of the game, shooting 38.6 percent from the field, 21.7 percent from long distance, and 55.6 percent from the free-throw line. Birmingham-Southern outrebounded Oglethorpe, 47-21, leading to 14 second-chance points to Oglethorpe's seven. 

Freshman Chris Lawrence played well for the Petrels off the bench, scoring 16 points on 7-of-16 shooting, while sophomore guard Romello Bates scored 14 points and led the team with four assists and two steals. Junior guard Drew Patrick finished with 12 points on 5-of-10 from the field and 2-of-4 from three-point range. 

The Panthers scored the game's first five points and outscored the Petrels 12-1 over the game's first 5:10. Oglethorpe put together a bit of a comeback, going on a 12-7 run to cut the BSC lead to eight, 30-22, with 4:38 remaining in the game. The Panthers pushed the lead back out right before halftime, though, finishing the period on a 14-4 run to take a 44-26 lead at the half.

The Petrels began to fight back early in the second period. Spurred on by a partisan home crowd, they went on an 11-2 run over a 2:15 stretch early in the half to cut the BSC lead to 52-39. However, that was as close as they would get, as the Panthers pushed the lead back out again and never looked back. They pushed the lead out to 22 points with a 9-0 spurt over the next three minutes, then proceeded to trade baskets with the Petrels for the remainder of the contest.

"Today was a tough day," said Head Coach Philip Ponder. "Not much went right the first five minutes and we found ourselves playing catch-up the rest of the way. We were playing some great defense earlier in the year, but we have really struggled on that end of the court the last few games and that has to change. We have to find a way to get back to playing defense the way we did earlier in the year."

The loss means the Petrels are now tied with Birmingham-Southern for fourth place in the conference at 6-4. Those two sit a couple games back of first-place Sewanee and a game back of the second-place tie between Rhodes and Centre. The Petrels will now hit the road for their final trip of the regular season, going to Memphis, Tenn., on Friday to take on Rhodes at 9 p.m. Eastern and traveling to Conway, Ark., to go against Hendrix at 4 p.m. Eastern on Sunday.