It was a rough day for the Marlboro Dukes.
The Pine Bush Bushmen limited them to two points in the second quarter, as they opened up a 20-point halftime lead on their way to a 54-26 win in Wednesday’s non-league girls’ basketball game at Marlboro High School.

“It was a very tough loss,” Marlboro coach Matt Murphy said. “I wish I had better words for it, but plain and simple, we didn’t show up to play today. We got outrebounded and we got outhustled. We got beat up the court. The girls weren’t playing together and weren’t playing for one another.”

The Dukes had their best quarter in the first.

After the Bushmen got on the board with baskets from Jah-esa Stokes and Ketura Rutty, Marlboro’s Hannah Polumbo cut the lead in half with basket. However, Watson knocked down a three-pointer to take a 7-2 lead.

The Dukes fought back, and a jumper by Polumbo pulled Marlboro to with three points and Gabby Murphy added two free throws to cut Pine Bush’s lead to 7-6 with 4:39 left in the first.

The Dukes took a short-lived 9-8 lead on a basket by Nalyah Campbell, but Rutty scored a basket that propelled the Bushmen to a 10-0 run that gave them a 17-8 lead at the end of the first quarter.

The defense clamped down on the Dukes in the second quarter, outscoring them 13-2 to take firm command of the game, and never looked back.

Things got so bad in the second quarter that Murphy pulled three of his starters.

“The best thing that can come out of this is we take all this negative and turn it into a positive,” Murphy said. “And learn to get turned around and do what they need to do to win.”

Rutty added 17 points or the Bushmen, who ran their season opening winning streak to nine straight games.

Lily Sullivan led the Dukes with seven points.

Up until recently, the Dukes had fared well against the larger non-league schools on their schedule.

They posted a 65-42 win over Class AAA power Monroe-Woodbury, but were beaten by the Class AAA Kingston Tigers, 57-49 on Jan. 13. The Bushmen are also a Class AAA team.

Murphy purposely scheduled difficult non-league teams for the Dukes so he could test their mettle.

“I wanted to see what we were going to be made of,” Murphy said. “This is just a steppingstone. We were in Kingston and didn’t play our best, and we didn’t play our best today.” Then we have (Our Lady of) Lourdes (on) Friday, who’s another well-coached and very good team. Let’s see who shows up Friday.”

The weather postponed the game until Saturday. The Dukes had a better showing but were outrun in a 75-63 loss.

Simone Pelis led Our Lady of Lourdes with 36 points and Gabby Murphy led Marlboro with 20.
Still, there was a lot to learn.

“The biggest thing is playing together and playing for each other more than anything,” Murphy said.