The Oglethorpe baseball team fell to the homestanding LaGrange Panthers on Tuesday night, 17-3, at Cleaveland Field in LaGrange. The defeat dropped the Stormy Petrels to 17-10 on the season overall.

The Petrels fell behind the Panthers early, allowing three runs in the first inning and two in the second. They got a run back in the fourth when senior right fielder Patrick Burnette, junior first baseman Andrew Mink and senior second baseman Matt Motz all singled and freshman catcher Alec Babb followed with a sacrifice fly to score Burnette and make the score 5-1. However, LaGrange responded with 10 runs in the bottom half of the inning, making the score 15-1 and essentially putting the game away right then and there.

LaGrange added two more runs in the bottom of the eighth, while the Petrels responded with a couple in the top of the ninth off of an RBI single by freshman right fielder Christian Perez and a run-scoring ground out by junior third baseman Dylan Leonard. It was too late to affect the outcome of the game, however.

Freshman right-hander Alex Smith got the start for the Petrels and suffered the loss, falling to 0-1 on the season. He allowed five runs on three hits and four walks over an inning-and-a-third. Senior right-hander Matt Davis, freshman right-hander Kyle Rutledge, freshman right-hander Devlin Basinger and freshman right-hander Christopher Keane all delivered scoreless relief outings for the Petrels.

Oglethorpe will be back in action this weekend, when they host Millsaps in a 3-game SAA series Friday and Saturday. Friday's single game is scheduled to get underway at 6 p.m., while Saturday's doubleheader will get started at 1 p.m. The Petrels will welcome LaGrange to Anderson Field for the return trip on Tuesday, April 3, at 7 p.m.