English girls hoop loses to Somerville in OT

LYNN – It was a heart-stopper at the Paul F. Cavanagh Field House on Wednesday as English and Somerville played what felt like a state tournament game. In fact, for the Highlanders, it was a win-and-in situation as they closed the regular season.Battling through 32 tense minutes of regulation and a four-minute overtime, it wasn’t until the Highlanders held off a last second chance for English that the outcome was finally settled with a 57-54 Somerville win.”We schedule these games because they have always battled us hard,” English coach Fred Hogan said. “We just kind of gave this one away at the end. We had too many turnovers, many of them being unforced.”The Highlanders (10-10) fought their way past an English team that had the lead for most of the game before seeing Kelsey Garrity score off a steal with 31 seconds left to send the game to the extra session.”We didn’t quit and got a lot of contributions from so many kids,” Somerville coach Shannon Clark said. “They never quit and kept believing they could get it done.”Overtime started with the teams trading baskets as Lashaunda Hogan’s (16 points) three gave English a 52-51 lead with 3:10 left. The turnover bug then began to bite English in a major way.Indira Evora (12 points) hit a pair of free throws with 2:44 left to put Somerville back in front. She then added another free throw with 58.9 ticks remaining to make it a two-point game.The Bulldogs would fail to convert and Evora made it a two possession game with 18.9 seconds left. English’s Shannon Calnan scored on a layup to cut it to 56-54 before Evora was fouled and missed two from the line.The Highlanders, however, pulled down the offensive rebound and hit one of two from the line with four seconds left to put the game away.”English played very hard,” Clark said. “It was a tremendous game.”The Bulldogs (13-10) came out firing as they used a 9-0 run to end the first quarter and led 14-5. Somerville returned the favor in the second quarter by going on an 11-0 run to deadlock the game at 18-18.Garrity was a thorn in English’s side throughout the second as she scored nine of her 22 points just before the half as the two teams headed to the locker room tied at 27-all.Calnan scored six quick points for the Bulldogs to begin the third as English pulled in front by six. It would prove to be the biggest lead for either team in the second half as Somerville closed back to within two at 37-35 by quarter’s end.The teams would then trade the lead back and forth in a crazy final eight minutes as Catherine Stinson gave English a 49-47 lead with 1:59 left.