Bushmen, off to slow start, fall to Newburgh

By Mike Zummo
Posted 1/11/23

It’s been a long road so far for the Pine Bush boys’ basketball team.

Entering the season light on experience, the Bushmen have lost their first seven games to start the season, after …

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Bushmen, off to slow start, fall to Newburgh

Posted

It’s been a long road so far for the Pine Bush boys’ basketball team.

Entering the season light on experience, the Bushmen have lost their first seven games to start the season, after Friday night’s 71-45 road loss to the Newburgh Free Academy Goldbacks.

Playing with their full complement for only the second time this season, the Goldbacks put it to the Bushmen immediately, scoring the game’s first 12 points before a jump shot by Omar Gonzalez put the Bushmen on the board.

The Goldbacks followed that with a 7-0 run, fueled by five straight points by Newburgh’s Jayden Lorenzo, as the Bushmen fell behind 23-6 at the end of the first quarter.

“We got off to a terribly slow start,” Pine Bush coach Dan Conley said. “They went out there at full strength again, and they put points on the board. You give them the run that we gave them and it’s real hard to come back.”

That didn’t mean the Bushmen stood down.

They tightened up the defense and the Goldbacks only outscored them by three points in the second.

“We changed the defense a little, but it was just more settling in and realizing we’re not going to let them run all night, or we’re going to see triple digits on the board,” Conley said. “You can’t watch the rebound because they’re already breaking out. If you’re the last man, you’ve got to get back and stop that fast break, which I think we were able to do a little bit.”

Overall, the Goldbacks were overwhelming, putting four players in double figures. Jayden Lorenzo scored 10 of his game-high 19 points in the first quarter. Elnathan Johnson knocked down four 3-point baskets on his way to 16 points. Aidan Brown and Deondre Johnson added 12 each.

“They’re a strong team; they shoot the ball well from the outside, and they’ve got Deondre inside,” Conley said. “It’s hard to stop, except we settled in and we played well, but once they got out to that start, it was hard to come back from.”

Gabe Goodwin led the Bushmen with 10 points, five on fourth-quarter free throws.

The Bushmen shot 14 of 23 from the charity stripe, but rarely missed in the fourth quarter, hitting 13 of 18.

“Tonight that doesn’t make it better but hopefully it gives you the confidence in a game that’s together when you’re going to the free-throw line when you’re down a couple of possessions to knock them down,” Conley said.

The road doesn’t get any easier for the Bushmen from here, as they opened the week with a non-league home game against the Cornwall Dragons and will host the Washingtonville Wizards on Thursday.

Next week, they will face the Monroe-Woodbury Crusaders and Warwick Wildcats.

“We keep battling and something’s going to go our way,” Conley said. “But we’ve got to keep working and plugging along.”