Pine Bush’s girls’ basketball team can make it close – but it could not finish against Newburgh at home Tuesday, Feb. 2.

Daisy Brown is fouled here in the second quarter. She finished the game with nine points.

Molly Gillespie hit a basket with 23 seconds left in the fourth quarter to pull Pine Bush within three, down 62-59. But the Lady Goldbacks would put it out 65-60.

And that inability to finish did not sit well with Bill Lacovara, who coaches Pine Bush.
“We didn’t execute when we should have. We should have won that game,” he said. “We’re past the point of being excited about winning a game. We want to get in the section tournament, and that’s our goal. We can’t get in the section tournament playing like this.”
The Lady Goldbacks were leading Pine Bush 26-24 at the half, but the real game was in the second half, and it came down to the wire.

Newburgh would put up 27 points in the third quarter as Christina Clyburn went 7 for 7 from the foul line, but then Pine Bush’s Megan Maisonet scored 10 of her team leading 26 points in the fourth quarter.

But the comeback fell short.

“I don’t like playing them. They are scrappy, and they don’t give up,” said Newburgh Coach Arturo Santana. “I told the girls, we could be up 12 or 14 points – but watch them come back because they don’t give up, especially at home.”

It was the second meeting of the season after Newburgh won a tough, physical contest the first time they played. And again, Pine Bush did not back down as Maisonet brought them back with clutch play inside with a pair of  field goals, and a three-pointer while going 3/4 from the foul line in the fourth quarter.

And she helped Pine Bush in the third with a pair of field goals, while going 4 for 5 from the foul line.

“We kind of got complacent with our lead and stopped playing defense, slacking a little bit, and that’s when they  caught up, and that’s what (Coach) Santana exactly told us not to do,” said Clyburn, who scored all of her nine points in the third quarter.

Tashalee Lawrence led the Lady Goldbacks with 16 points, scoring all but two of them in the first half. And her early play helped offset the 2/9 performance from the foul line by the Lady Goldbacks in the fourth quarter.

By Bond Brungard
sports@tcnewspapers.com