The Oglethorpe men's basketball team secured a big road win Saturday afternoon in Maryville, Tennessee, as junior guard Lane Foster banked in a running 3-pointer as the buzzer sounded to give the Stormy Petrels an 83-81 overtime victory over the homestanding Maryville Scots at the Maryville Thanksgiving Classic. The victory improved the team to 3-2 on the season.
With the score tied at 71-71 after 40 minutes, the teams played an extra 5 minutes to decide the winner. The Scots struck first on a 3-pointer at the 3:48 mark and held that advantage until the final 1:30, but junior forward Josh Cammon sank a pair of free throws to cut the Maryville edge to a single point with 1:26 on the clock. The home side went back ahead by three with 1:05 remaining, but Foster answered with two more free throws at the 1:03 mark to make it 76-75. Another Maryville layup gave them a 78-75 lead with just 36 seconds on the clock, but Foster responded with a layup at the other end to cut the Scot lead back to one with 32 seconds left. Maryville hit a free throw to make the score 79-77 and set up a wild final 10 seconds. Sophomore guard Carlos Sone buried a 3 with 10 seconds left to give the Petrels an 80-79 edge, but the Scots went right back down and took the lead back, 81-80, with 5 seconds on the clock. Foster took the inbound pass, quickly dribbled up the floor, and fired a running 3-pointer just before the buzzer sounded. The ball banked off the glass and fell through the net, setting off a wild celebration on the Oglethorpe side.
The Petrels got a big defensive stop at the end of regulation just to get to overtime. With the score tied 71-71, the Petrels missed a chance to take the lead with 30 seconds left, leaving the Scots with a chance to win the game. They got a jump shot with just a second remaining, but sophomore forward Toju Etiwe recorded a huge block to send the game to the extra period.
Oglethorpe led 36-31 at halftime and they quickly pushed their advantage to 10 points, 44-34, with 18:40 left in regulation. However, Maryville came back with 5 straight points to make it 44-39 with 17:20 left. The Petrels embarked on a 7-0 run over a little less than a minute, though, getting a basket from Foster and a couple from junior guard Dimetri Chambers to push their Petrels out to their largest lead of the game, 51-39, with 14:54 remaining in regulation. The Scots used 9 straight points of their own to get back to within 3, and they slowly worked their way into a tie score late.
The Petrels led the entire first half, taking a 7-1 lead out of the gate and leading by as many as 7 points during the opening 20 minutes.
Chambers led the way for the Petrels, scoring 27 points in 37 minutes off the bench. He connected on 9 of 18 from the field and 7 of 9 from the free throw line while recording four steals. Sone picked up a double-double, scoring 13 points -- including a perfect 4-for-4 from the charity stripe -- and grabbing 11 boards. He also recorded three assists and three steals. Junior forward Will Koch added 10 points and six rebounds.
"That was a wild finish!" said Oglethorpe head coach Philip Ponder. "I thought our first-shot defense tonight was great, but we gave up way too many offensive rebounds [Maryville outrebounded Oglethorpe 52-38 overall and 24-14 on th offensive glass]. Foul trouble hurt us, which caused us to put some really small lineups out there, but I'm excited we could pull out the win. It's always good to get a road W. We are looking forward to trying to get a weekend sweep tomorrow."
The Petrels remain in Maryville Sunday, where they'll take on Johnson University-Tennessee at 2 p.m. After that, they'll return to Georgia and head up to Demorest Tuesday evening at 7 p.m. to take on Piedmont.