The Oglethorpe men's basketball team improved to 6-3 in SAA play and maintained a tie for second place in the league with an 86-83 win over Birmingham-Southern Sunday afternoon in Birmingham, Alabama, at Bill Battle Coliseum. The win also improved the Stormy Petrels to 12-8 overall.

Down 42-39 at the break, the Petrels slowly turned the game into their favor in the second half. The Panthers took a 52-48 lead with 15:25 left in the game, but Oglethorpe got consecutive 3-point tallies to take a 54-52 advantage. The teams continued trading baskets back and forth, and the score was knotted at 63-63 with 11:20 to go in the game. At that point, the visitors went on an 11-0 run to take a 74-63 lead with 9:40 on the clock. With Oglethorpe up 77-66 at the 8:45 mark, Birmingham-Southern went on a 15-6 run over an 8-minute stretch to cut the Oglethorpe lead to 82-81 with just 24 seconds on the clock. The Petrels hit a pair of free throws with just 10 seconds left to push it back up to a 3-point game, but the Panthers again cut the lead to a single point a few seconds later. The Petrels hit two final free throws in the waning seconds to secure victory.

The home side took a 12-1 lead at the outset, building their 11-point edge with 16:20 left in the opening half. The visitors came back with a 10-2 run, though, cutting the Birmingham-Southern lead to 14-11 at the 12:55 mark. The Panthers pushed their lead back to 9 points, 20-11, with 9:45 left, but the Petrels cut that to 27-22 at the 5:35 mark. Oglethorpe continued to whittle down the Panther advantage, cutting it to 3 points late in the half.

Junior guard Dimetri Chambers led Oglethorpe with 34 points on 10-of-20 from the field, 5-of-8 from 3-point range, and 9-of-12 from the line. Junior forward Josh Cammon led the team with 11 rebounds and also threw in 11 points. Freshman guard Justin Day scored 17 points, while junior guard Lane Foster added nine assists.

The Petrels shot 42.4 percent from beyond the 3-point arc, making 14 three-point baskets on the day. They also shot 45.5 percent from the floor and 75 percent from the charity stripe.

"I'm proud of the way the guys bounced back after a tough loss on Friday," said Oglethorpe head coach Philip Ponder. "Any road win in conference play is huge. We shot the ball extremely well tonight, and we needed it, because they are an extremely tough team to guard. We are very excited to get the win!"

The Petrels will hit the road again Friday, when they travel to Conway, Arkansas, to take on Hendrix at 9 p.m. Eastern.