There was excitement when the Pine Bush boys’ lacrosse team took the field on April 27 to open the 2021 season against the Washingtonville Wizards.

It had been two years since the Bushmen – or any other spring sports team – had been on the field due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Bushmen answered the bell by winning one of their three games last week, beating the Washingtonville Wizards, 16-0, to open the season, before losing to the Wallkill Panthers and Warwick Wildcats.

“When we played Washingtonville, we were really excited to play and that carried over to Wallkill,” Pine Bush coach Mark Brennan said. “But when they beat us, it was kind of like, ‘all right, we’re playing lacrosse again, we’ll start working on our stuff again. We’re happy to be out here, but we have to do well to keep the excitement going.’”

The Bushmen struggled against Wallkill in a 12-3 loss and hung with the Wildcats for the first quarter on Saturday before they pulled away in the second and third quarter on their way to an 18-9 victory.

“It was a tough game, but we use it as a learning tool to get better,” Brennan said.

The Bushmen had trouble containing Erik Vogt and Nate Ketchum, who combined for 10 of the Wildcats’ goals with five each.

Sean Cosgrove added three.

“Wallkill’s a very good team and they’re well coached and we got absolutely destroyed on the transition on the fast break,” Brennan said. “Warwick did the exact same thing. They exploited what we were weak at so we’re just going to hunker down and work at the fast break. We’ll try and get better at faceoffs.”
The Bushmen got most of their offense from three sources.

Jack Galloway and Danny DeGroodt had three goals each for the Bushmen and Isaac Cruz scored two. Cruz also had an assist.

However, the Wildcats proved too much, in the second quarter when they broke a 2-2 tie.
Kevin Walter broke the deadlock when he recovered a saved shot that bounced off the knee of Pine bush goalkeeper Tyler Ostrom. Ketchum followed with one of his goals, prompting Brennan to call a timeout barely two minutes into the second quarter.

That’s when Vogt broke loose for three straight goals, giving the Wildcats a 7-2 lead before Galloway broke the streak, pulling the Bushmen to within 7-3.

Despite Warwick’s run, the Bushmen only trailed by four goals at halftime.

The Wildcats put the game away in the third quarter, outscoring the Bushmen, 6-1, in the period.

“After the last year, I want to say I’m happy that we’re just playing and we’re enjoying each day, but there’s a part of me – as the coach – that wants to do well and wants the kids to do well,” Brennan said. “So, we’re grinding it out. We’re finding what we are, our roles as a team. So, it’ll take a while to find our identity. We’ll work on what we need to work on.”