The Cougars started off their holiday break with the opening game in the Citizen First Holiday Classic in Bowling Green. They squared off against the 6-2 Franklin County Flyers.

After starting the game extremely strong, the Cougars faded in the second half in a crushing 61-54 loss.

In the first half the Cougars struck fast and had the Flyers back on their heels. With the Cougars attacking the basket and getting into the lane with ease it looked like the Cougars would run away with the game. After one quarter of play the Cougars were up 17-13 and if it weren't for free throws that lead could have been a lot bigger.

The second quarter saw more of the same as the Cougars continued to get easy baskets at the rim as well as attacking the boards and getting rebounds by the dozens. With the Flyers on the verge of folding and infighting amongst themselves on the sideline the half ended with the Cougars up 40-29.

The Flyers would come out of the break a completely different team.

To start off the second half the Flyers hammered the Cougars on the glass as well as got easy basket after easy basket. The Cougars that had been shredding their full court press, looked timid and lost at times. The Cougars that had out rebounded the Flyers were being consistently bullied around down low and gave up a ton of easy baskets around the rim. At the end of three quarters the Flyers had regained the lead and had seized control of all the momentum.

In the fourth quarter with the Cougars threatening to come back the Flyers slammed the door shut on any idea of a comeback. The Cougars potent offense remained dormant when they needed it. They only mustered 4 points in the last quarter as the Flyers held and handed the Cougars their third loss of the season 61-54.

Back at home the Lady Cougars got back onto the court after suffering a team wide illness. They welcomed the West Creek Lady Coyotes from Tennessee.

After playing a strong first half they, just like the boys team, faded late in the second in a 38-32 loss.

The Lady Cougars used their suffocating defense to keep West Creek from getting any easy looks and the Lady Cougars held a 7-5 lead after one quarter. They continued their in your face defense, chasing the Lady Coyotes all over the court. They managed to increase the lead to 16-12 at the break.

In the third quarter the Lady Cougars' stout defense started to bend ever so slightly. At the beginning of the fourth quarter though the Lady Cougars finally broke.

With six minutes left in the game, the Lady Coyotes snatched the lead and then used their own brand of smash mouth defense to hold onto the lead all the way to the end.

With the loss the Lady Cougars fell to 3-4 before the tournament next week.

In other action, the Cougars won their second game of the tournament 66-57 over Owensboro. They will play against d'Youville tomorrow at Bowling Green high at 12:30 p.m. The Lady Panthers fell to Bardstown 63-58. They will resume action at Caverna on Thursday. The Panthers play tomorrow morning at 10:30 a.m. at Warren East high school in the Hardee's Classic against Garrard County.