Pine Bush’s baseball team entered a home game Wednesday, May 15 with a 7-9 record against Newburgh Free Academy, needing to win three of their remaining four games to qualify for the postseason.

“All the teams in AA are pretty good,” said Matt Boffalo, Pine Bush’s coach. “Everybody is in the battle. There are no easy games.”

In the second inning Pine Bush’s playoff chances started glowing when Haakon Meland hit a grand slam, and the Bushman scored six runs in that inning. The momentum continued to carry, and the Bushmen won 10-7.

“We took our lumps earlier in the season,” said Boffalo, “but they are starting to play a little better, each and every game.”

Haakon Meland finished the game by knocking in five runs. Gunnar Meland helped by knocking in three runs, and Logan DeVries fanned eight over six innings as Pine Bush’s starter.

Newburgh took a 1-0 lead in the first inning. Jaden Caballero, the lead-off hitter, walked. He worked his way around the bases until he scored on Lukas Prokosch’s ground-out. Caballero also drove in a run to help the Goldbacks.

Jhovanny Valdez drove in a pair of runs with two hits. Liam Gordon and Matt Barnett also drove in runs for the Goldbacks.

The Goldbacks were 6-11 coming into the game after being swept in league series by Kingston and Middletown and taking a league series from Monroe-Woodbury.