The men's basketball team topped Colorado College on Friday night in Jackson, Miss. in quarterfinal action at the 2011 SCAC Men's Basketball Tournament, 61-58. The Petrels took a lead midway through the first and then, this time, held off a Tiger charge down the stretch to earn the huge win.

The Tigers jumped out in front of the Petrels and held a 15-9 advantage with nine minutes to play in the first before Oglethorpe made its move. The Petrels burst in front of Colorado over the next five minutes of play with a 14-2 run that featured three Todd Ward lay-ups and was capped by consecutive three-pointers from Joe Kennedy and Alex Richey. When the dust had settled Oglethorpe held a 23-17 lead they would never relinquish.

Ward eventually capped his outstanding first half by scoring two more buckets, the second with only 3 seconds remaining, to send the Petrels into the locker room with a 27-19 lead.

When these two teams met in Colorado Springs back in January, Oglethorpe coughed up a double digit lead late in the second half as the Tigers stole the victory late. This time, the Petrels built a 9 point lead with 12:09 to play and saw the Tigers fight back to trim the lead down to a single point on four separate occasions in the final six minutes. Tonight, however, Oglethorpe had an answer for every Tiger run and the Petrels closed out the win to advance to face Centre College in the semifinals on Saturday night at 8:00 p.m Eastern.

Every time the Tigers drew close it seemed senior Joe Kennedy was knocking down one of his four clutch three's or nailing big free throws (6 of 6) en route to a team-high 18 points. Ward netted 14 points and 7 rebounds in the win and moves past Oglethorpe great Russ Churchwell for 2nd all-time in school history in rebounding. He needs only seven more boards to become the all-time leading rebounder in SCAC history.

Alex Richey scored 12 and Andrew Steioff 11 to round out the Petrels in double figures.

The victory is the Petrels first postseason win since topping Rose-Hulman in the SCAC seminfinals back in 2004, the last time Oglethorpe advanced from quarterfinal action as well.