The Brookhaven Lady Cougars overcame a sluggish first half and rallied to beat the Madison St. Joseph Lady Bruins Saturday night 57-51 in BA’s Christmas Invitational Tournament at John R. Gray Gymnasium.

In the boys’ game, the Natchez Trinity Episcopal Saints overpowered the Brookhaven Academy Cougars to claim a 76-59 victory in day two of the tournament.

Brookhaven Acad. 57, St. Joe 51 

Brookhaven Academy coach Mack Gardner was tight lipped about his halftime speech to his Lady Cougars after going to the locker room trailing St. Joseph Catholic by 14 points, 27-13.

Whatever the strategy changes were during halftime, it worked well as the Lady Cougars came out firing and outscored the Lady Bruins 44 to 22 in the second half to take a 57 -51 victory and earn a spot in Monday night’s Holiday Invitational finals.

Gardner did comment after the game, “We played solid basketball in the second half. We felt if we continued to make them work baseline to baseline our conditioning would pay off down the stretch and it did.”

He concluded, “I’m proud of the way our girls bounced back after getting down early.”

Senior guard Madison Warren led the Lady Cougars with 16 points and Lindsey Winborne chipped in 14. Mary Claire White added 8 points to the BA total. Warren also dished out 5 assists for BA.

Caitlyn Beasley and Dymond Jackson each had 18 points for the night to lead the Lady Bruins.

With the win the Lady Cougars improve to a record of 9-6 on the season.

Trinity 76, Brookhaven Acad. 59 

The Cougars and Saints came out and provided their fans with a great offensive show in the first half as Trinity managed to secure a slim 36-35 lead at halftime.

In the second half, the Saints had too much offensive firepower for the Cougars to overcome as Trinity outscored BA 40-24.

The Natchez-based Saints had four players to score in double figures as Dre McCoy provided the offensive spark with 22 points and five rebounds. Tommy McCoy fueled the flames with 19 points and five rebounds. Wyatt Boothe and Trey Hall contributed 12 points apiece. Boothe paced the Saints on the boards with six rebounds.

Senior guard Zac Smith was the offensive leader for the Cougars (11-3) with 22 points. Junior forward Peyton Hood chipped in with 15 points and five rebounds. Ethan Harris added 11 points and also grabbed five rebounds.