It was a day of milestones for the Pine Bush girls’ lacrosse team on April 11.

Sophia Licardi scored two goals, including her 100th, and two other players – Kathryn Cragan and Camry Brown – scored the first goals of their varsity careers in the Bushmen’s 11-3 win over the Newburgh Free Academy Goldbacks at Academy Field in Newburgh.

“It was really exciting,” said Licardi, a junior middie. “I knew it was going to happen soon, but I wasn’t sure it was going to happen in that game or not. But then I hit 99 the game before, and I was like, ‘I had to do it now.’

Now came when she put in the milestone goal with 20:36 remaining in the first half. Pine Bush coach Caitlin Murphy yelled out that it was Licardi’s 100th goal, and the ball was taken immediately out of play.

She knows exactly what she plans to do with the milestone ball.

“I’m going to write the date on it, and then I’m going to keep it in my room,” Licardi said.

It was a long and interesting road to get 100 goals for Licardi, who came up to varsity as a seventh grader, and played defense for the entire season. The original plan was to move her up to offense for her eighth-grade season, which was the spring 2020 season that was canceled due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, so she didn’t play offense for the Bushmen until 2021, which was a COVID-shortened season, making last year her first full season.

Do the math and that’s 100 goals in the equivalent of about two seasons. She still has most of 2023 and all of 2024 to see where she’s going to land.

“I didn’t think I was going to do it but it’s really exciting,” Licardi said. “And doing it with everybody else is so much fun. I didn’t do it all on my own. There was an assist on my 100th goal so it wasn’t just me driving the goal all the time. It’s everybody else.”

Even though she got the milestone that comes with experience, she was happy to see two of her young teammates get on the career goals board in the same game.

Kathryn Cragan also scored two goals, the first of which coming with 17:30 remaining in the first half, was her first varsity goal. Brown, who also had an assist also posted the first goal of her career.

“We’re excited that Katie Cragan scored her first two goals on varsity,” Licardi said. “This is her first season and she’s been killing it. Leah (Mehberg) and Camryn are killing it too.”

The Bushmen led 7-0 before the Goldbacks finally got on the board with a goal by Michelle Prado. Anaya Camacho added two second-half goals.

Licardi finished with two goals and two assists, while Julia Tanner led the Bushmen with three goals and three assists. Mackenzie Brown had two goals and one assist, Cragan finished with one goal and an assist, while Julia Corin added one goal.

The Bushmen finished the week on Thursday with a 12-7 home win over the Saugerties Sawyers.

“It’s a very new and fresh team, and we all have never played together before because we lost eight seniors last year,” Licardi said. “I think we’re going to have a really good season. We’re going to keep working together.”