The Oglethorpe men's basketball team fell behind 45-32 after the first half of play Saturday evening a Dorough Field House, putting themselves behind the eight-ball against the visiting Covenant Scots. The Stormy Petrels played them even in the second half, but it wasn't enough to get them back into the game, and Covenant prevailed 82-69. The result drops the Petrels to 1-2 on the season.
The Petrels did get a couple of standout performances on the evening, with junior guard ConnorSmith pouring in 17 points on 5-of-9 from the field, 4-of-6 from the three-point line, and 3-of-3 from the charity stripe. He also led the team with two steals. Sophomore guard Chris Lawrence added 13 points on 3-of-7 from three-point range while sophomore forward Will Perry contributed 12 points and a team-high seven rebounds to go with a couple of assists.
Just like in the game against Piedmont on Wednesday night, the Petrels got off to a rough start against their USA South opponents. They enjoyed their only lead of the game, a brief 4-3 edge, with 18:41 remaining in the opening period, but the Scots slowly pulled out to a big lead over the course of the first half after that. They outscored the Petrels 34-18 over a 14:49 period from the point when the home side held the one-point edge. They ran off six straight points to push to a seven-point lead in a 2:20 stretch, then methodically extend the lead to 15 points. Oglethorpe got the Covenant edge down to 10 points, 42-32, with 32 seconds left in the half, but the visitors hit a three-pointer at the buzzer to hold a 13-point lead at the break.
The Petrels made a couple runs in the second half. After Covenant got the lead as high as 16 with 16:54 to play, the Petrels answered with a 10-2 run to cut their deficit to just eight, 56-48, with 14:18 to go. The Scots answered, though, pushing their advantage to its largest of the game with a 9-0 run over the next 3:17, making the score 65-48 with 10:48 remaining in the game. Oglethorpe went on another push over the next 4:19, outscoring Covenant 10-3 during that stretch and cutting their deficit to 10 points, 68-58. They would get no closer than that, however, and the Scots pulled away to the 13-point win in the end.
Covenant shot 47 percent from the field to Oglethorpe's 41 percent, and made 50 percent of their three-pointers compared with the Petrels' 39 percent. Oglethorpe did outshoot them from the foul line, 70-to-62 percent. Covenant won the rebounding battle 39-30 and outrebounded the Petrels 10-5 on the offensive glass. As a result, they outscored the home side 13-2 in second-chance points. The Petrels did outscore the Scots 27-15 off the bench, largely due to Lawrence's 13 points and a 10-point performance from sophomore guard Justin Edwards.
"I thought we had good intensity tonight," said Head Coach Philip Ponder, "but we just had too many mental mistakes, both on offense and defense. Every time we made a mistake on defense, they were able to capitalize. We have a lot of new players, as well as a lot of returning players in new roles, and we just aren't clicking on either side of the court right now. This is a good group, though, and we'll get better as the season progresses."
The Petrels will next head to Maryville, Tennessee, for next weekend's Maryville Classic. They'll take on LaGrange at 2 p.m. Saturday and hosts Maryville at 4 p.m. Sunday. Emory will also face off against those two teams over the course of the weekend at the annual Thanksgiving weekend event which rotates between the four schools.