The Wallkill Panthers won their third straight Section 9 championship and rewarded last year with three players being named among the section’s Top 50 girls’ basketball players.

Standout guard and Panthers newly minted all-time leading scorer Zoe Mesuch was named Section 9 Class AA player of the year, and Wallkill coach A.J. Higby was named Class AA coach of the year, after coaching the Panthers to their third straight appearance in the New York State Public high School Athletic Association regionals.

The section honored two of the Panthers’ key seniors, twin sisters, Alex and Sam Dembinsky, who will go onto play college basketball together at SUNY Cortland.

The Pine Bush Bushmen nearly reached the peak after a multi-year rebuild that reached its highest point this season with a berth in the Section 9 Class AAA championship game.

They didn’t win the title, suffering a loss to the Our Lady of Lourdes Warriors, who advanced to last weekend’s NYSPHSAA Class AAA Final Four.

The Warriors’ Simone Pelish was named Player of the Year, but Pine Bush’s senior guard Jah-esa Stokes was named a Top 50 player, along with junior forward Ketura Rutty and guard Leticia Watson.

Stokes plans to continue playing basketball next year at Dominican University. Rutty and Watson will be back.

The Valley Central Vikings, who earned the second seed in the Section 9 Class AA tournament before losing to the eventual champion, No. 3 Wallkill, will only lose one of their three top 50 players to graduation this year: Breonna Curtis Wright.

Junior forward Maggie Bishop and sophomore Giselle Johnson also were named to the Section 9 Top 50 team.