The Oglethorpe men's basketball team improved its defensive performance considerably Friday over that in Sunday's loss to Birmingham-Southern. The team had a tough shooting and rebounding night, however, and the Stormy Petrels fell to Rhodes in Memphis, Tenn., 72-57. The team falls to 15-7 on the season, 6-5 in SAA play.

Despite never leading after the seven-minute mark of the first half, the Petrels stayed in the game for the majority of it. They were down by just six points at halftime and pulled to within seven with 9:46 remaining in the game. However, the home-standing Lynx were able to pull away from there, leading by as many as 18 points on their way to a 15-point win.

The Petrels held Rhodes to 45.3 percent shooting for the game, but they only shot 42.6 percent themselves, including 30.8 percent from three-point range. Rhodes shot 32 percent from long distance. Both teams shot well from the charity stripe with the Petrels converting at a 76.5 percent rate and the Lynx coming in at 80 percent. Rhodes outrebounded Oglethorpe 36-24. The Petrels got very good contribuitons from their bench, though, outscoring the home side 24-8 in that category.

Individually, freshman Chris Lawrence got his first career start and made the most of it, scoring 19 points on 6-of-11 from the floor, 3-of-6 from three-point range, and 4-of-5 from the free-throw line. Freshman forward Chase Wardlaw put forth an extremely good showing, as well, off the bench, scoring 13 points on 4-of-7 shooting and 5-of-5 from the three-throw line while making a couple steals. The two centers, senior Jordan Kinney and sophomore Connor Sigrist, tied for the team lead with five rebounds apiece.

Rhodes went on an early 7-0 run to take a 10-4 lead early in the contest, but the Petrels came back to take a 16-14 lead with a 12-4 run. It was the last lead they would have. A 13-4 Rhodes run put them ahead 27-20 with 1:54 remaining in the first half. Oglethorpe cut that to a three-point deficit with 54 seconds left in the period but Rhodes hit a three-pointer before the break to take a 30-24 lead into the locker room.

The Petrels were able to cut the Rhodes lead to five to start the second half, but the Lynx came back with an 8-0 run to take a 43-30 lead with 16:04 remaining. Oglethorpe was able to slowly push that Rhodes advantage back down to seven points, 49-42 with 9:46 left, but the Lynx started a big 17-6 run at that point, pushing the lead out to 66-48, their largest of the game, with 5:15 left. The Petrels were never able to get close after that and Rhodes won by 15 points in the end.

"I thought we played much better defensively tonight, particularly in the first half," said Head Coach Philip Ponder, "but we got beat on the boards in the second half. Offensively, we took a step back. We weren't patient and at times tried to do too much. We need to take another step forward defensively on Sunday and let the offense come to us instead of trying to force things."

The loss puts the Petrels at 6-5 in SAA play, keeping them in a fourth-place tie with Birmingham-Southern. Those two sit two games behind a three-way tie for first. The team will now travel to Conway, Ark., to take on Hendrix on Sunday. That game is scheduled to tip off at 4 p.m. Eastern.