ARLINGTON – You could say that Swampscott has been flirting with danger for about a month ? and that danger finally found a way to catch up.And it caught up in a big way, as the Big Blue lost Tuesday night’s Eastern Mass. Division 3 semifinal playoff game to Arlington Catholic, 22-9.Click here to see a photo gallery from last night’s football action.The Big Blue, who looked like a well-oiled machine after defeating Gloucester in October, had some injuries and some other personnel issues as they headed down the home stretch. None of them was more inopportune than the ACL injury to receiver Trevor Wheeler, who was hurt in a Winthrop game that Swampscott had to fight from behind to win.A solid 42-21 win over Saugus followed, but then came the Big Blue’s only Northeastern Conference loss, to Beverly. After that, there appeared to be some definite vulnerabilities. First was a tougher-than-expected win over 1-10 Danvers, and then the scratch-and-claw 21-13 Thanksgiving Day win over Marblehead – a game where, no matter how hard they tried, the Big Blue couldn’t lose the sight of the Magicians gaining on them in the rear-view mirror.Although Swampscott finished the regular season at 9-2 (9-3 after last night’s loss) coach Steve Dembowski acknowledged that the road to the Northeastern Conference South title wasn’t easy, “especially with all our injuries and some other situations that we had to deal with.”But,” he said, “I’m proud of the kids for fighting through it and getting back here.”After the Beverly game, there appeared to be no way Swampscott would be able to defend its Division 3 title. The complicated tiebreaker certainly didn’t favor the Big Blue, yet it all worked out. And after the dust settled, there they were ? poised for a repeat.And that’s why Dembowski was more than a little shaken after last night’s game, in which the Big Blue were uncharacteristically shaky.”I didn’t recognize my team,” he said more than once. “We just couldn’t get anything going.”It didn’t help that the Big Blue lost their No. 1 weapon, quarterback Chris Cameron, with a hip pointer midway through the third quarter.”But,” said Dembowski, “I thought (backup quarterback) Matt Barbuzzi came in and we moved the ball very well. We just couldn’t score on the opportunities we had.”The teams knew each other well, as Swampscott defeated Arlington Catholic in last year’s playoff game. Dembowski said the Cougars didn’t do anything differently than they did last year ? except execute.”Their defense was pretty much the same as it was last year,” he said. “They did a few things on offense that were different, but that’s all.”