The Oglethorpe baseball team got their relocated non-conference series with the Birmingham-Southern Panthers underway Saturday afternoon in Hoover, Alabama, with a 9-5 defeat. The loss dropped the Stormy Petrels to 0-2 on the young season.

Birmingham-Southern got the scoring started in the third, tallying 2 runs in that inning, an additional run in the third and 4 runs in the fourth to take a 7-0 lead.

The Petrels came back in the bottom of the inning. Sophomore first baseman George Krivsky and sophomore second baseman Jonathan Cruz put up back-to-back two-out singles to put runners on first and second. Senior shortstop Alex Featherstone followed with a 2-run double down the left-field line to put Oglethorpe on the board, then junior left fielder Will Arnold followed with a 2-run homer to quickly put the Petrels back into the game at 7-4. 

The score stayed the same until the eighth inning, when Oglethorpe inched closer. Featherstone led off the inning with a double and advanced to third on an Arnold groundout. Two batters later, senior center fielder Chris Keane singled up the middle to score Featherstone and pull Oglethorpe to within a couple runs, 7-5. 

Birmingham-Southern secured the win in the ninth, though, scoring a pair of runs to push their lead back out to 9-5. The Petrels went down in order in the bottom of the inning.

Sophomore right-hander Garrett Parkins got the start for the Petrels and suffered the loss. He allowed 3 runs, five hits and four walks over four innings.

The Petrels will complete the three-game series with Birmingham-Southern in Hoover on Sunday. The two teams will take part in a doubleheader with the first pitch scheduled for noon Eastern.