BROCKTON – Conventional wisdom says two things: The first is that it isn’t always a good thing to go into the tournament without a loss; and the second is that you have to test yourself every now and then so you’ll know what you need to work on.Lynn English’s boys basketball team had better hope that conventional wisdom knows what it’s talking about. The Bulldogs hung with Brockton for about three and a half quarters Sunday, but when the Boxers pulled away, they absolutely pulled the rug out from under English. The final, 75-60, is due mainly to the fact that Brockton outscored the ‘Dogs in the fourth quarter, 31-17.The loss was English’s first of the season after the Bulldogs won their first 15 games.”We’ll learn from this,” said coach Buzzy Barton. “You always try to take something good from a situation. I didn’t think our focus has been there in practice. We’ve just been going through the motions. So now, maybe, we’ll understand what it takes.”English was hamstrung by two problems throughout: The first, fouls. Both Ryan Woumn and Jarell Byrd had four fouls before the third quarter ended, and had to sit out the beginning of the fourth period ? which coincided with the amount of time Brockton needed to pull away.The second was Woumn himself. The Boxers – who had been torched by Woumn last March in the state semis (31 points) – paid an inordinate amount of attention to him this time, which severely limited his ability to drive to the hoop and create his shot. Add to that the fact that he was not feeling well, and what you got was a five-point performance.”He was sick coming into this game,” Barton said. “That said, however, I didn’t like the way we all played, especially on offense.”The game was billed in Brockton as a rematch between the two teams that fought through overtime in the state semis last March before English came away with the victory. The Brockton gym was packed to the gills for the occasion.While Brockton and illness combined to limit Woumn’s effectiveness, English got a stellar performance off the bench from Travonne Berry-Rogers (19 points). Byrd finished with 10, but only scored two of them after the break.On the other hand, diminutive guard Leonardo Medina (listed as 5-8) took over the game in the fourth quarter, scoring seven points in the first minute (19 overall) to get the Boxers off and running as they ran away and hid.”Leo does that a lot for us,” said Brockton coach Robert Boen.Barton thought English lacked energy on offense, but Boen thinks he knows why.”They spent a lot of time pressing us on defense, and I’m sure it had to affect their offense,” he said.Still, neither team could pull away. It was a four-point game after one (12-8, Brockton) and English whittled it down to a point (28-27) by the half. Neither team could break away from the other through the third, as each scored 16 points and Brockton held a one-point lead (44-43) after three.”I don’t want to take anything away from Brockton,” Barton said. “They played a very good game. But I just didn’t like the way we played on offense. We started our offense too high, and we weren’t aggressive enough.”