Plexico Brooks had missed a portion of the second half with what appeared to be an injury.

However, by the fourth quarter, he was back in the game with the Pine Bush football team leading the Goshen Gladiators by two points. Quarterback Manny Hannon, normally a running back but playing the position due to the injury of starting quarterback Triston Santos, told Brooks just to go down and run down the clock.

Brooks wasn’t having it.

He took the handoff at the Goshen 37-yard line, and he not only ran the clock, he ran the football 37 yards through the Goshen defense for a touchdown, restoring the nine-point lead, giving the Bushmen their first win of the season, 36-27, over the Gladiators on Friday night at Goshen High School.

“I was just very excited,” Brooks said.

The first win of the season had been a long time coming for the Bushmen, who faced Section 9 Class A champion Our Lady of Lourdes, runner-up Cornwall and defending Section 9 Class AA champion Newburgh to start the season.
They’ve lost all three.

“I wouldn’t want to win any other way,” Hannon said. “We’re a young team and we’ve got maybe three guys that are returning players with varsity experience. I wouldn’t want any other way to get these guys better.”

It also was a costly game for the Bushmen, who entered the game having already lost several key players before Friday’s game, lost wide receiver and defensive back Elon Zanetti. Then, on the second play of the second quarter, they lost Santos.

That shifted Hannon, who usually starts at running back, to the quarterback position.

“I wouldn’t say it changed a lot, but it definitely did shake us up a little bit,” Hannon said. “But it’s that next guy up mentality. We all trust each other. I trust the line. They trust me. We trust our running backs to trust each other.”

Brooks scored four of the Bushmen’s five touchdowns and freshman Ruben Simpson filled the void when Brooks was out of the game, running for 73 yards and one touchdown.

“(Simpson’s) a freshman and he’s getting better every game,” Pine Bush coach Rich Ormsby said. “He’s picked up the offense in the blink of an eye. It’s awesome.”

The Gladiators had an answer for almost anything the Bushmen did until the end of the game.

The Bushmen opened the game with a nearly nine-minute drive that resulted in Brooks’ 4-yard touchdown run. However, the Gladiators answered right back with a 3-yard touchdown run by Matt Boaz.

Brooks and Boaz also traded touchdowns in the second quarter as the game went into halftime tied at 14-14.

“Our linemen were putting in work,” Brooks said. “They motivated us. They were doing a lot.”

The Gladiators took their first lead of the game with 7:59 left in the third quarter on a 15-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Mark McKenna to Torin Breheny. However, Seamus Smith missed the extra point and the Gladiators’ lead was limited to six points.

The Bushmen answered immediately with a 4-yard touchdown run by Simpson to tie the game, and kicker Justin Martir drove the extra point through, giving the Bushmen a 21-20 lead.

They never trailed again, and took a nine-point lead, early in the fourth quarter on a 27-yard touchdown run by Brooks and a two-point conversion run by Logan Hawley.

“Goshen is a team that played a game to overtime,” Ormsby said. “They had the win over Warwick that was a one-score game. That’s a team that has played close, tough games, and we just competed in that kind of game with them. That’s huge for us.”

It also gives the Bushmen the opportunity to enter the rest of their Section 9 Class AA schedule with some confidence. They’ve lost their only league game so far to Newburgh.

They’ll host Monroe-Woodbury on Friday, as they look to earn one of four playoff spots.

“The train’s rolling now,” Hannon said. “Now we’ve got to come in to practice and keep working hard.”