The Pine Bush girls’ soccer team had a busy week, playing three games.

After tying the Wallkill Panthers, the Bushmen posted two straight victories including a 7-1 win over the Newburgh Free Academy Goldbacks on Thursday afternoon at Pine Bush Elementary School.

“It was fun,” senior captain Morgan Tubbs said. “That kind of win feels good, and it was a good way to end the week.”

It’s been an eventful time for the Bushmen, who opened the week battling the Wallkill Panthers to a 1-1 tie on September 11. The following day, they helped christen the new turf Alumni Field behind Pine Bush High School with a 5-1 win over the Warwick Wildcats.

“We were worried about our legs coming in, but we responded pretty well,” Pine Bush coach Dan Conley said.

They were expecting to play another evening game on the field Thursday night, but Newburgh had bussing issues, which sent the game back to the grass field at Pine Bush Elementary School.

Tubbs wasn’t as concerned with the Bushmen’s stamina for Thursday’s game.

"We haven’t played a lot this season,” she said. “It was just good to get out and play. We were supposed to be on the turf, but being back on grass is a little bit of an adjustment, but we did fine.”

The Bushmen did more than fine, getting an early goal from Tubbs, just three minutes into the game. They got their second in the 17th minute, on a score by Kathryn Cragan.

“That was a confidence boost,” Tubbs said. “That put us up ahead and makes us just want to keep going and shut games quickly.”

Overall, the Bushmen’s attack was balanced with Tubbs and Cragan scoring two each. Deirdre Meberg, Audra Meberg and Ava Boffalo added one each for Pine Bush.

Shea Toback made seven saves in the first half, and Grace Druke added three in the second.

“We’re really a family,” Tubbs said. “We’re coming together. It’s been a long time in the making. Most of us have played together since we were five or six.”

The Bushmen had only one hiccup in the game, on a corner kick from the right by Newburgh’s Marina Parodo. She sent her kick curving into the goal, and it bounced off Toback’s hands and just over the goal line.
“You get a little shaky there because they have a couple of goal scorers on their team, but we settled in much better in the second half, I thought, controlling the ball, and finishing.”

It was the Bushmen’s third goal that set the Goldbacks on their heels, when Audra Meberg took the ball up the left post and crossed a pass to Cragan, who finished the job for a 3-1 halftime lead.

Tubbs scored her second goal just eight minutes into the second half, leading a four-goal effort in the half.

“We were able to get everybody in,” Conley said. “One of the things I said to the girls was even when we subbed from the start of the game to the end of the game, it wasn’t a huge drop off.”