GLOUCESTER – The Benjamin A. Smith Fieldhouse has become a house of horrors for even the best of basketball teams in the Northeastern Conference. And on Friday it nearly claimed another victim.The Lynn English girls basketball team needed a 13-2 run late in the third quarter and then a pair of huge defensive stops in the final 30 seconds to escape with a 39-36 win over the gritty Fishermen.”Every time we play these guys, its always a battle,” English coach Fred Hogan said after his team improved to 12-1, 9-0 in the NEC. “I told the girls that it’s getting to be state tournament time and we have to learn how to win close games. And I was proud of how they maintained their composure at the end.”It took every ounce of energy from the Bulldogs to keep Gloucester at bay. The Fishermen (6-5) did an outstanding job of frustrating the high-powered English offense for 32 minutes, but simply couldn’t come up with a big basket when it was needed.”We did everything but win the game,” Gloucester coach Jon Flanagan said. “I couldn’t be prouder of the defensive effort. That’s one of the best teams in the conference and we held them to 39 points. Usually you win a game when you do that.”The Fishermen came out with a game plan to pack it in against English’s Jeanette Anderson and it worked as the senior center managed only four points in the first half. But the Bulldogs still exited the first quarter with a 9-6 lead before Lindsey Rogers took control for Gloucester.Rogers put Gloucester on her back early in the second, scoring five straight points to give the Fishermen their first lead of the contest. The teams then exchanged the lead twice before LaShaunda Hogan hit her second three of the half with just under a minute left to tie the game at 15-15 heading into halftime.”They really packed it in and made it hard on us,” Hogan said. “We never could get our running game going because they kept getting back on defense.”Early in the third quarter, the Fishermen took a 20-17 lead on a Rogers’ free throw. But Hogan responded with her third 3-pointer of the game to tie the game at 20-20 and finally give the Bulldogs some momentum.For the first time all game, English was able to use its speed in the backcourt to beat Gloucester’s defense down floor. A Jenicia Duggins fast break lay up helped ignite a 10-0 run that Miranda Hogan capped with a three, her only basket of the night, that gave English a 30-22 lead after three quarters.”We worked all week on closing out on their shooters,” Flanagan said. “And we didn’t quite to it a couple of times.”LaShaunda Hogan scored on a lay up early in the fourth quarter to make it a 14-2 run and extend English’s lead to 31-22. But Hannah Cain cut the lead back to seven and then Anderson had to go to the bench after picking up her fourth foul with 5:54 left.Vanessa Saputo hit two free throws and Alicia Unis scored on a lay up to quickly cut English’s lead back to three with plenty of time remaining. A Duggins’ steal and lay up seemingly quelled the tide, but Ali Verga buried a trey to make it 33-30 with 3:00 left.Hogan called a time out with 2:45 left to get his big center back on the floor. The move paid off in a huge way as Anderson hit a free throw and then scored on a put back off a miss to make it 36-30.Gloucester didn’t go away though as Cain and Rogers scored on lay ups to cut the gap to 36-34 with 20 seconds left. But Kayla Murkison came up with two critical free throws with 17.2 seconds left to make it a 38-34 game.Sam Saputo scored with six seconds left to keep the Fishermen alive, but Duggins hit 1-of-2 from the line with 1.8 seconds left to effectively put the game out of reach.”We really got good contributions from the bench with Jeanette in foul trouble,” Hogan said. “They did a good job at the end of the third quarter and early in the fourth.”