It can take more than being good to maintain a long winning streak.

Sometimes there’s a little bit of luck involved, or your opponent makes a mistake and leaves the door open.

The Pine Bush Bushmen stuck close enough to the New Paltz Huguenots so that when the Huguenots were disqualified in the meet-ending 400-yard freestyle relay for using a scratched swimmer, the Bushmen’s fourth-place finish was enough to propel them to their eighth straight Section 9 girls’ swimming championship on Saturday at Valley Central High School in Montgomery.

The Bushmen finished with 262.5 points. The Valley Central Vikings were fourth with 217 points, and the Wallkill Panthers collected 14 points to finish 21st.

“It’s very exciting,” said Pine Bush senior Ella Humphrey, who led the Bushmen’s push at the end of the meet, winning the 100-yard breaststroke to help the Bushmen close the gap. “I’m very proud of all the girls on this team. They all worked extremely hard this season.”

The Bushmen were in fourth place behind the Huguenots, the Our Lady of Lourdes Warriors and the Valley Central Vikings heading into the final three events.

However, it was Humphrey’s win and teammate Liana Williams coming in right behind her in the 100-yard breaststroke that put the Bushmen in position to win.

“We knew going in that was probably going to be the case,” Humphrey said. “Our breaststroke is our push event, and when me and Liana went one and two, that was a great feeling because she moved right on up. I’m so proud of her, and I’m proud of my sister, who was in that heat.”

Her sister, sophomore Lyla Humphrey finished seventh in 1:12.62, a season best time. Williams’ second-place time of 1:08.89.

“I’ve watched (Williams) believing herself so much more, and I’m so excited to see everything she does,” Humphrey said.
Valley Central’s Molly Hoover picked up the area’s only other individual Section 9 championship when she outraced Our Lady of Lourdes’ Katie Skerritt to win the 100-yard butterfly with a personal best time of 59.68.

“I’m really excited,” Hoover said. “I wasn’t expecting first place, but I’m so happy about it. It wasn’t the best time today, but I’m close to the (school) record, so I hope to beat it in states.”

She was even trailing during the final 25 yards of the race, but in the last half of the final length, Hoover raced down Skerritt and hit the wall less than a tenth of a second ahead.

“I definitely saw Katie racing next to me the whole race,” Hoover said. “It really pushes me having someone next to me.”

Humphrey is the only Pine Bush swimmer to be advancing to the state championship meet, scheduled for Nov. 21 and 22 at the Webster Aquatic Center, a departure.

She qualified during Thursday’s preliminaries when she finished the breaststroke in a personal best time of 1:07.16.

“I’m really excited,” Humphrey said. “I want to go up there and give it my all and get as high as I can. I have big goals.”

Hoover entered the meet already qualified for the state meet in the 100-yard breaststroke, having qualified for the state meet two weeks earlier at the Orange County Interscholastic Athletic Association Division I championship meet.

“I definitely would have felt more pressure coming into this meet if I hadn’t already made states,” Hoover said. “But I’m really happy I made it at counties, so it could be more fun this week.”

Valley Central’s Eleanor O’Neill was third in the 1-meter diving event with an 11-dive score of 496.50. Kaedence Bresnick was eighth with a score of 387.65, and Sage Rieber was ninth. Leah Rieber was 11th. Emily Nolan was 16th.

O’Neill’s score was over the state qualifying score of 440.

She’ll be joining Hoover at the state meet.

“I think it’s really going to be fun,” Hoover said. “I know girls from other teams, and I’ll get to know them better.”