The Oglethorpe men's basketball team fell to the Berry Vikings for the second straight day Saturday, losing 88-79 to drop to 6-3 overall and 5-3 in SAA play. The Stormy Petrels led 39-37 at halftime, but the Vikings shot 59.3% from the field in the second half and pulled away for the 9-point victory.

The Petrels shot 44.1% for the game and converted on 40.7% of their 3-point attempts. They also shot 84.2% from the foul line. However, Berry bested them with a 51.7% mark from the field and a 44% mark from 3-point range. The second half disparity did the Petrels in, however, as Oglethorpe shot just 35.3% from the field in the second stanza. The Vikings also outrebounded Oglethorpe 37-30 and outscored them 29-0 off the bench.

Senior guard Dimetri Chambers led the Petrels with 29 points and six steals, hitting 5 of 10 3-pointers and 4 of 5 foul shots. Senior Lane Foster scored 23 points of 5-of-10 from the field and 11-of-12 from the free throw line. Junior guard Carlos Sone led the team with 10 rebounds but managed just 4 points. 

The Petrels led by as many as 5 points in the first half and led by a basket at the break. However, the Vikings responded in the second half. They went on a 15-0 run over a 4:30 stretch to turn a 45-42 deficit into a 57-45 lead with 12:50 to go. Oglethorpe cut that to 59-54 with 7:40 left, but Berry again responded with a 14-2 run to push their lead out to 73-56 with 4:15 on the clock. Oglethorpe got no closer than 6 points the rest of the way.

"I thought we played a great first half," said Oglethorpe head coach Philip Ponder. "I really liked our energy, as well as our offensive and defensive execution. We struggled to get stops in the second half, and that was the difference in the game. Berry got the better of us this weekend, but hopefully we'll get another chance to play them in a couple weeks [at the SAA tournament]."

Before the conference tournament, the Petrels will play again next weekend. They had series against Hendrix and Rhodes called off due to a mixture of coronavirus protocols and winter weather, and they'll make up two games from that set of four. The SAA office will release the schedule for next weekend early in the week.