By Mike Zummo
The Pine Bush Bushmen came so far, and it ended so suddenly.
It ended against the only opponent that has given them difficulty, as Simone Pelish scored a game-high 21 points, as the top-seeded Bushmen fell, 49-27 to the No. 2 Our Lady of Lourdes Warriors in Saturday’s Section 9 Class AAA girls’ basketball game at Monroe-Woodbury High School in Central Valley.
“We definitely didn’t play the way we wanted to play,” Pine Bush junior forward Ketura Rutty said.
What they encountered was a physical matchup against a banged-up Bushmen team. Leticia Watson entered the game with a hurt ankle, and senior guard Jah-esa Stokes took several hard shots and left the game late in the second quarter and didn’t return until the second half.
They weren’t the only ones.
“I hurt my knee in the beginning of the game, so it was really hard for me to shift and move,” Rutty said. “I played as much defense as I could and tried to do my best on offense.”
Behind Pelish, Lourdes got 16 points from Kayla Johannesen.
Jah-esa Stokes led Pine Bush with 12 points.
In a physical matchup, the first foul of the game was called as time expired in the first quarter. The whistles were few and far between until the game was out of reach in the fourth quarter.
“Never in all my years of basketball - and we’re talking a lot of years - I’ve never seen anything like that,” Pine Bush coach Michelle Bouffard said. “I’m not saying they took it away. We played scared. We did not play our game.”
The Bushmen scored the game’s first two points, a layup by Stokes 26 seconds into the game. But then, the Warriors responded with a 13-0 run to take command of the game.
Stokes broke the run with a mid-range jump shot, but the damage had been done by then, as 6 minutes passed between her two baskets, and the Bushmen fell behind, 15-5 at the end of the first quarter.
“Lourdes is very fundamental,” Bouffard said. “They moved the ball, and for a while our defense was making them use the shot block, but they moved, and they would get open, and they would score. WE stopped their one-hits and their quick plays, but they didn’t stop moving, and we did.”
The Bushmen opened the tournament with a 62-51 over the No. 4 Middletown Middies on Thursday. Leticia Watson hit five 3-pointers on her way to 18 points.
They finished the season with an 18-2 overall record. Both their losses came to the Warriors.
“I’m still proud of my team,” Rutty said. “This was a good season overall.”
Many of the Bushmen’s core will return next season, although they will lose Stokes. However, as the Bushmen built up to this point over the last several seasons, the Warriors had the edge in experience.
Now, after having seen their first sectional title game, the Bushmen are looking to take that experience into next season.
“We’re definitely going to be back next year,” Rutty said. “It was a great experience, overall, no matter how bad the score was. It wasn’t even that bad, but no matter what, it was a great experience for us.”