English girls hoop drops tough one to Andover

LYNN – The task was a pretty unenviable one for the Lynn English girls hoop team on Sunday at Conigliaro Gymnasium in the Division 1 semifinals of the Spartan Classic: Take on the force that is No. 1 ranked Andover.For the better part of the first half, however, the Bulldogs were more than up to the challenge against the Golden Warriors. But Andover’s depth and talent eventually wore English down and the MVC power cruised to a 75-48 victory.Click here for a photo gallery.”They’re the No. 1 team in the state for a reason and we knew that coming in,” English coach Fred Hogan said. “We missed a lot of easy shots in the first half and you can’t do that against a team like that and expect to have a chance to win.”The Golden Warriors came in sporting a nifty 19-1 record but they got an early scare as English (11-9) battled tough in the first quarter before a 12-0 run spanning the end of the first and start of the second quarter turned a 9-6 game into a 21-6 Andover lead.From there on, the Bulldogs were playing catch up.Andover ballooned the lead up to 16 before English began to claw its way back into the contest. Diondra Woumn’s layup cut the lead to 32-20 with a little over three minutes left in the half and gave the Bulldogs a little life.Andover sharpshooter Ally Fazio quickly snuffed those hopes out as her back-to-back three pointers sparked a back breaking 12-0 half ending run that sent Andover to the locker room with a 44-20 lead.”They like to put pressure on you the whole game so we decided to come out and give that right back to them,” Hogan said. “And to their credit, they handled it well.”Fazio continued to light up the scoreboard in the third quarter before backcourt mate Nicole Boudreau joined in as they helped extend the lead to 63-27 with 2:00 left in the quarter.The Bulldogs continued to battle and were able to hold Andover in check through the final 11 minutes, something Hogan was proud to see his team do.”We never stopped battling and that was great to see,” Hogan said. “We just missed too many shots in the first half and against them, you can’t do that.”