It was simply not the Oglethorpe men's basketball team's night Friday at Dorough Field House. They suffered a tough shooting performance and were unable to get many stops in a 72-47 defeat to the visiting Millsaps Majors. The loss dropped the team to 12-7 on the season overall and 6-2 in SAA play, a mark which will see them tied for first place in the league headed into Sunday's action.

The Stormy Petrels shot just 27 percent for the contest overall and 21 percent from 3-point range, both serving as season lows for the squad. Their 47 total points was a season low, as well. The Petrels didn't fare well from the free throw line, either, converting at a 59 percent rate there. Meanwhile, Millsaps shot 48 percent from the field overall, 54 percent from 3-point range, and 82 percent from the free throw line. The Majors also outrebounded the Petrels 42-29, and outscored them 28-18 in the paint and 33-11 off the bench. 

Millsaps pushed their lead out right away, building a 16-2 advantage over the opening seven minutes of the contest. The Petrels were able to cut it to a 10-point game a couple of times in the first half and the score was 23-13 with 6:16 left in the period. However, the Majors scored eight straight points to push it to a 31-13 advantage. The home team came back with a few baskets toward the end of the half, going on a 10-3 run to make it 36-23 at the halftime break.

Millsaps embarked on another run to begin the second half, though. They outscored the Petrels 8-0 over the opening 2:30 of the half to push out to their largest lead of the contest at that point, a 44-23 advantage, with just under 17:30 left. The Petrels responded with a 13-4 stretch over the next 5:30 to slice the visitors' lead to just 12 points, 48-36. However, the Majors exploded from that point, outscoring the Petrels 21-2 over the next 6:05 to completely put the game away. After the run was over, the Majors had an insurmountable 69-38 advantage with just over five minutes remaining.

Junior forward Will Perry finished the game with 21 points and eight rebounds, leading the Petrels in both categories. Freshman forward Will Koch grabbed six boards and passed out a pair of assists, while freshman guard Tre' Rice scored six on 4-for-4 from the free throw line.

"We just didn't come to play tonight," said Oglethorpe head coach Philip Ponder. "I'm not sure what was wrong with us, but we didn't do any of the things that we had been doing these past few weeks when we had things rolling. We've got to be better in every facet of the game than we were tonight. This team has shown what it is capable of, and we can't let one terrible game knock us off our stride. We've just got to regroup and get ready for the next game."

The Petrels will welcome Birmingham-Southern to Dorough Field House Sunday at 3 p.m. in a game that will feature a battle of first-place teams. There is now a 4-way tie atop the league between those two teams, Centre and Sewanee, and the Petrels will play all of them over the next couple of weeks.