The Wallkill girls’ basketball team had a difficult trip to the Amsterdam Holiday Showcase, staggering home with two losses.

Some home cooking is just what the doctor ordered on Friday night as the Panthers rebounded from their difficult trip up north with a 54-37 win over the Pine Bush Bushmen on Friday night to win the Coaches vs. Cancer Holiday Tournament at Wallkill High School.

“We don’t like to lose,” said sophomore Zoe Mesuch, who was named the tournament’s most valuable player after scoring a team-high 16 points. “It felt good to get a nice win.”

Mesuch was named MVP after, leading the Panthers in both tournament games. She led the Panthers to victory in the tournament opener on Dec. 17 against Red Hook.

Mesuch was the tournament MVP for the second straight year.

“It’s really nice to get an award like that, but I can really thank my team for it because they just support me in everything I do. They give me the ball. They’re just really good teammates.”

Emma Spindler scored 11 points and was named to the all-tournament team.

“That’s a tough call because it could have been either one of them,” Wallkill coach A.J. Higby said. “Spindler is the one that will cause everybody fits defensively because she’s too much to deal with defensively. Offensively, when she goes to the hole, it’s good stuff usually. That was a really good game for her, and Zoe played really well in the Red Hook game.”

Pine Bush got most of its offense from two sources.

Sophomore Ketura Rutty scored a game-high 18 points and Jah-esa Stokes, who played her first game back after being sick with the flu, added 15.

“This is her first day back,” Pine Bush coach Michelle Bouffard said. “She’s not feeling well, and you can see it in her play.”

Rutty and Leticia Watson were named to the all-tournament team.

“Ketura is probably the most athletic person on that court,” Bouffard said. “She’s got something special. She’s a 10th grader. She’s got the height. She’s got the jumping. She has to be ready for the double team. No one is going to let Ketura Ruddy be by herself.”

After taking a five-point lead after the first quarter, the Panthers exploded in the second, building a 35-19 halftime lead, but the Bushmen went on a 6-0 run into the fourth quarter to cut the Panthers’ lead to 10 points.

“When we’re in that zone, we don’t stop the penetration as much and don’t rebound as well,” Higby said. “They were running through us. I can run that zone for a little while. I can’t do it forever.”

The Panthers then turned on the man-to-man defense, which turned into a 7-0 run over 64 seconds to put the game away.

“They went on a little bit of a run in the third and beginning of the fourth, and we knew we didn’t want that to happen,” Mesuch said. “We don’t even want them to come close to having a chance to win, so we just turned it up. We knew we had to pick it up.”