The Oglethorpe women's basketball team had a 14-point lead, 42-28, over visiting Sewanee with 7:30 remaining in the third quarter Friday night at Dorough Field House. They were unable to hold on, however, as the Tigers came back to hand the Stormy Petrels a difficult 64-60 loss. The defeat drops the Petrels to 7-10 on the season, 2-5 in Southern Athletic Association play.

The Tigers went on a 24-5 run over nearly 11:30, bridged between the third and fourth quarters, and turned the game around with freshman Petrel forward Lauren Ransom on the bench with foul trouble. Ransom finished with 10 points on 4 of 8 from the field and 2 of 2 from the foul line while adding 3 blocks, but was only able to play 20 minutes in the contest.

The Petrels still trailed 54-49 with 5:28 remaining in the game, but began to mount a comeback when Ransom re-entered the game with just under five minutes left. They got four straight points to cut the Sewanee advantage to 54-53 with 3:40 remaining and then, after a Sewanee bucket, tied the game on a 3-pointer at the end of the shot clock by freshman guard Bailey Charles with 1:33 remaining. Charles finished the game with a team-leading 17 points and 7 rebounds.

The Tigers came back with a pair of free throws at the other end and then a bucket with 24 seconds remaining, giving themselves a 60-56 lead and putting the Petrels behind the 8-ball. Charles hit another three to make it a 60-59 game with 15 seconds left and Oglethorpe got the ball back down by 3 with nine seconds remaining.

The Tigers fouled Oglethorpe senior guard Emily Buck with eight seconds remaining, though, stopping the Petrels from attempting a game-tying 3-pointer. Buck, who finished the game with nine points and three assists, made the first and intentionally missed the second. Freshman forward Madi Foltz, who finished the game with 10 points on 4 of 8 from the field, picked up the all-important offensive board, but was falling out of bounds and couldn't find a Petrel to save the ball to. Sewanee came away with the ball and finished the game at the free throw line.

The Petrels built an advantage in the first quarter, using a 14-2 spurt over a 4:30 stretch to build an 18-7 advantage with 2:39 remaining in the quarter. Sewanee used a 7-2 stretch to get to within five, 22-17, with 8:01 remaining in the half. Oglethorpe proceeded to convert consecutive buckets to push their advantage back out to 10 points late in the half, then traded baskets with the Tigers until the break. The Petrels continued that run into the second half, outscoring Sewanee 8-4 to begin the third period leading up the 14-point advantage.

For the game, Sewanee shot 41 percent from the field and 88 percent from the free throw line, while the Petrels converted on 39 percent of their field goal attempts and 67 percent of their foul shots.

"Today was a tale of two halves," said Oglethorpe head coach Alex Richey. "We got tentative against the pressure and had some careless turnovers in the second half. Credit goes to Sewanee for continuing to battle."

The Petrels will next welcome Centre to Dorough Field House, as the Colonels will be in town Sunday for a 1 p.m. start time. The team will then travel to Marion, Alabama, to take on Judson at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Monday. After that, the Petrels will have one more home weekend left on their regular season schedule, as they host Rhodes and Hendrix Feb. 5 and 7, respectively.