WOBURN — It may not have won the game, but the English girls basketball team battled to the bitter end in a 44-38 loss to Merrimack Valley Conference powerhouse Andover Tuesday at the Woburn Tournament.
The Bulldogs trailed by 15 points with under five minutes to play in the game, but they made it a two-possession game with 31 seconds to go after a free throw from Jessica Ruiz cut the deficit to 44-38. But that was as close as they came.
Andover’s Tatum Shaw led all scorers with 17 points. Mashayla Johnson led English with 13 points, while Kylia Reynoso had 11 points, nine of them on free throws. Jessica Ruiz was also in double figures for the Bulldogs with 10 points.
“We’re getting better with our defense, that’s a good team we played,” said English coach MacKenzie Charles. “We wanted to get in this tournament to get ready for the (MIAA) tournament, and that’s a good step, man. We just wanted to finish but that’s against a good team and I give all the credit to Andover for being prepared. They played hard and so did we. We communicated, but we gave up too many offensive rebounds, I think it was plus-11 for them and they converted on so many of them. That’s what really hurt us.”
Andover got out of the gate quickly and looked to be running away with the game, leading 13-1 lead midway through the first quarter, which ended with Andover on top, 16-6.
The Bulldogs clawed their way back in with an 8-2 run to close to 18-14. Andover stretched the lead to eight, 24-16, with a minute to go in the half. Reynoso closed out the half with a pair of free throws to make it a 24-18 game at the half.
Andover started the second half with a 6-0 run to put English in a 30-18 hole with six minutes to go in the third, which ended with Andover leading 36-24.
Shaw drained a three to start the fourth and give Andover its largest lead at 39-24.
English responded with a pair of free throws from Reynoso, a 3-pointer from Johnson and a bucket from Ruiz to slice the deficit to 39-31 with four minutes to go.
Shaw sandwiched a couple of hoops around another Reynoso free throw to get the lead back to 11 at 43-32 with 2:45 to go.
English refused to go away. Johnson swished a rainbow three. After an Andover freebie, Reynoso converted two free throws to make it 44-36 with 53 seconds left. Ruiz grabbed a big defensive rebound on a missed one-and-one, then made it a two-possession game, 44-38, with 31 seconds to play. Neither team scored the rest of the way.
Andover coach Alan Hibano was impressed with the Bulldogs’ defense.
“Their defensive intensity picked up and, credit to them, when they switched to that 2-3 zone,” said Andover coach Alan Hibano. “We got a little rattled by that and they started fighting back and made it six points at the half and six points late in the game. They really battled. I was hoping that it wouldn’t be that close, but we need tough, close games going into the state tournament.”
English (14-5) is back in action Wednesday (5)against North Andover, which lost 56-44 to host Woburn.
“We’ll get ready for tomorrow as we have another tough team,” Charles said. “No matter what, we are playing against a team from a great league and I like that. I could have scheduled cupcakes, but that doesn’t help you get battle tested. We will definitely learn from it.”
