The Pine Bush boys’ basketball team was hoping to keep Kingston’s Ryan McCardle from having a big game.
McCardle had a big game, anyway, knocking down seven 3-point baskets in the Kingston Tigers’ 95-56 win over the Bushmen in Thursday’s Orange County Interscholastic Athletic Association crossover game.

“We didn’t seem to have an answer for him,” Pine Bush coach Dan Conley said. “We tried zone against them. Then we went man against them, and he just kept finding a way to get open and knock them down.”

It’s been a rough go for the Bushmen since they got off to a 3-0 start. They have dropped four straight games since their win over the Valley Central Vikings on Dec. 19.

Starting with a loss to Newburgh Free Academy on Dec. 14, the Bushmen have lost to the Monroe-Woodbury Crusaders, Middletown Middies and now Kingston. They’ve given up more than 90 points twice.

“We’re playing all the big AAs now,” Conley said. “Our non-conference schedule went the way we wanted it to early, but now that we’re back in the section AA games, we’ve struggled. So, we got to see that we have to step that up to get to the next level.”

The Bushmen have also struggled without point guard Jacob Santiago, who has missed the Bushmen’s last two games. Without him moving the ball up the court, the Bushmen were out of sorts moving the ball up the court, and at times couldn’t get the ball through the Kingston defense.

“That’s our point guard and the next guy’s got to step up,” Conley said. “We had too many turnovers from the guard spot and the bigs. When we made the entry passes, some we didn’t catch that we should have. That makes a big difference in the game.”

McCardle wasn’t the only member of the Tigers to light up the scorebook. Ke’montae Thowe also knocked down two 3-point baskets on his way to 15 points and Demorio Smith added 11. Kevin Andrade scored 10 points.

The Tigers also scored 25 points from the free throw line. They took 36 shots from the charity stripe. The Bushmen were there quite a bit, too, hitting 20 of 31.

“There were a lot of fouls,” Conley said. “We committed a lot of fouls, and they went to the free-throw line an awful lot. So did we, so it went both ways, but we’ve just got to overall play better.”

Derek Hickman led the Bushmen with 13 points and Mason Miranowicz added 10.

Pine Bush heads into the Holiday Recess needing only one more OCIAA Division 2 victory to clinch a berth in the Section 9 Class AA tournament.

They will play two games over the break at the Albertus Magnus tournament.

They were scheduled to play Fordham Prep on Tuesday before playing another tournament game on Wednesday. They will open 2022 with two straight divisional games. The first will be against Warwick on Jan. 7 and then they are scheduled to face the Valley Central Vikings on Jan. 11.