For the second time in three days, the Trinity Episcopal Saints went up against a team that was not only a defending state champion, but a highly-ranked team as well.

Last Saturday night at home they upset defending Class AA State champion Brookhaven Academy 59-53. At the time the Cougars were ranked No. 1 in the AA poll. The opponent Monday night — defending Class AAA State champion Madison-Ridgeland Academy.

MRA, ranked No. 2 in Class AAA, was coming off a dramatic 46-44 win over rival Jackson Academy Saturday night thanks to Brandon Bolen’s buzzer-beating jumper. The Patriots would need no such dramatics Monday night as a big second quarter allowed them to defeat the Saints 56-34.

Bolen led all scorers with 19 points and Ryan Goolsby had 12 points for MRA (24-3), which ended Trinity’s four-game winning streak.

Stevan Ridley, Jon Davis King and Matthew Freeman, all key contributors in the Saints’ stunning win over Brookhaven Academy, were held in check by a tough Patriots defense. Ridley led the Saints with 13 points. King finished with eight points and Freeman had two pointss

Both teams got off to a very slow start and by the time the first quarter was over, the Patriots had a scant 4-2 lead over the Saints. But the second quarter belonged to MRA as the home team outscored Trinity 19-6 to take a 23-8 lead at halftime.

Trinity (10-8) couldn’t get its offense going until the fourth quarter, when it scored 17 points. But by then the game was completely out of reach.

Brookhaven Academy girls 49, ACCS 43

BROOKHAVEN — A missed lay-up at one end of the court and two free throws at the other end allowed the Lady Cougars, ranked No. 2, to have a bit of breathing room as they held on for a six-point win over the Lady Rebels.

Laura Guedon missed a lay-up that was almost uncontested. The Rebels grabbed the rebound, but couldn’t convert. The Cougars made the two key

free throws with about 3:30 remaining in the fourth quarter.

That four-point turnaround was key for Brookhaven Academy (26-3) as it took as big as a six-point lead and ACCS (25-8) never recovered.

“We tied the game once and we had the lead a couple of times in the fourth quarter,” Lady Rebels head coach Chuck Bauerle said. “Once they got up by five or six, we couldn’t quite get over the hump. It was a good game. We were right there on their home court and we didn’t quite finish it.”

Michelle Guedon led ACCS with 11 points and Katie Anne Swinny had 10 points. But the Lady Cougars’ defense held leading scorer Ariana DeLaSalle to just four points.

“Ariana had a really good game, not a good scoring game,” Bauerle said. “They packed it in a little bit. Laura had a good game. Michelle had a good game. I was pleased with the effort. We had good scoring from everybody.”

Neither team had bigger than a three-point lead until Brookhaven Academy got up by five points late in the game. Kelli Snider and Drew Holland Tigner led the Lady Cougars with 15 points each.

WCCA boys 57, Chamberlain-Hunt 52

WOODVILLE — Chamberlain-Hunt had two players score in double figures to just one for WCCA, but the Rams would be the team that ended up with the win thanks to a 14-9 advantage in the fourth quarter.

The win by the Rams (5-14 overall) left them and the Wildcats tied in the MPSA District 7-A standings at 3-4. Trumaine Norwood led a balanced scoring attack with 15 points and Tommy Johnson chipped in with nine points.

WCCA had nine players in the scoring column to just five for Chamberlain-Hunt, which proved to be critical in the Rams’ win Monday night.

Led by Steven Hacker and Kory White, Chamberlain-Hunt appeared to have take the momentum away from WCCA after the Wildcats outscored the Rams 15-11 in the third quarter to erase a four-point halftime deficit and tie the game at 43-43. Hacker finished with a game-high 18 points and White had 16 points.

Tensas Academy girls 49, Sharkey-Issaquena Academy 24

ST. JOSEPH — Mary Miller Ratcliff almost scored as many points by herself as the Lady Confederates did as a team as she ended up with a game-high 22 points to lead the Lady Chiefs to a 25-point win.

Ratcliff’s 22 points were nearly four times as much as Sharkey-Issaquena’s leading scorer had. That was Jennifer Heigle with six points.

Kaitlen Emfinger added 11 points for the Lady Chiefs (11-16), who jumped out to an 11-3 lead after one quarter of play and never looked back.

Madison-Ridgeland Academy girls 50, Trinity Episcopal 30

MADISON — Talk about a game of two halves. The Lady Saints were having their way with the Lady Patriots in the first half and had a 26-12 halftime lead. The Lady Patriots were not playing like the No. 1 team in Class AAA.

Then all of a sudden, Trinity’s momentum came to a screeching halt as MRA (28-4) scored 26 points while holding the Lady Saints scoreless. The Lady Patriots capped off the comeback victory with a 12-4 edge in the fourth quarter.

Trinity (9-13) stunned the crowd at the MRA gym by jumping out to a 12-4 lead at the end of the first quarter and then the Lady Saints outscored the Lady Patriots 14-8 in the second quarter. But what happened in the third quarter was, in a word, shocking.

Eliza Jones led Trinity with seven points while Moe Bell led the Lady Patriots with 11 points.