The Oglethorpe men's basketball team could not overcome a poor shooting day and a significant rebounding advantage by Birmingham-Southern Sunday afternoon at Dorough Field House. The result was a 68-55 loss to the visiting Panthers, dropping the Stormy Petrels to 6-8 on the season, 1-2 in Southern Athletic Association (SAA) play.

The Petrels came back to tie the game in the first half after the Panthers built an early 12-point lead, but Birmingham-Southern pushed their lead back up to 10 points at halftime and further moved their lead out to as many as 15 points in the second half. Oglethorpe got no closer than nine after that.

Individually, the Petrels were led by sophomore guard Chris Lawrence and junior guard Connor Smith, who both scored 13 points on the afternoon. Lawrence went 4 for 7 from the field and 2 for 4 from 3-point range, adding a 3-for-3 day at the free throw line on top of that. Smith went 5 of 10 from the field and 3 of 7 from the 3-point line. Sophomore forward Will Perry led the team with 10 rebounds while scoring eight points.

Down 34-24 at halftime, the Petrels began working their way back into the game just like they had in the first half, outscoring the visitors 7-0 over a 1:35 stretch near the start of the second half to cut the Birmingham-Southern lead to just 36-33 with 17:33 remaining in the game. It was as close as they got for the remainder of the contest. From that point, the Panthers began the push toward their largest lead of the contest. They embarked on a 19-7 run over the next 8:50, pushing their edge to 55-40 with 8:12 remaining. The Petrels slowly whittled that deficit down to 10 points with 4:50 to go, but began trading baskets with the Panthers. The home side got the deficit down to nine points, 62-53, with 2:07 remaining, but could get no closer than that.

In the first half, the Panthers ran out to a 15-3 lead over the opening 4:18 of the game. The Petrels immediately fought back, though. They started a run that would eventually build to a 19-7 stretch of their own over 9:30, tying the game 22-22 with 5:43 left in the first half. A 4-minute drought combined with 10 consecutive points from Birmingham-Southern, though, to give them a 10-point lead at the break.

Oglethorpe shot 37 percent for the game compared with 39 percent for Birmingham-Southern. The Panthers shot 35 percent from 3-point range and 75 percent from the charity stripe while the Petrels went 23 percent from distance and just 36 percent from the foul line. The Panthers outrebounded the Petrels 52-27 overall, 19-10 on the offensive glass. They also collected 17 assists to the Petrels' seven.

"Today was disappointing," said Head Coach Philip Ponder. "We had been playing really well, but we got away from doing some of the things that had helped us be successful and reverted back a little bit to our early-season form. I don't think our intensity was where it had been the last few games and it certainly wasn't where it needed to be. Offensively, we missed some open looks and fee throws, but we also didn't play as smart as we had been. Hopefully, we'll use this as a wake-up call and we'll get back to playing the way we had been."

The Petrels will look to shake off the loss when they get back to action Saturday against in-state rival Berry at 8 p.m. from Dorough Field House. The game serves as a rematch of a game Dec. 4 up in Mount Berry, Georgia, where the homestanding Vikings defeated the Petrels 85-69.