With every Section 9 championship the Pine Bush volleyball team collects, something becomes clear every season.

No one wants to be the team that breaks the streak and doesn’t win.

“(We feel that pressure) 1,000 percent every day,” senior captain and setter Anabella Almeida said. “Our coaches are like, ‘you can’t lose this year; you’ve got to push hard; you’ve really got to work as a team. There is so much pressure.”

The Bushmen kept the streak going on Saturday, despite the best efforts of the Monroe-Woodbury Crusaders. They persevered for a 3-1 victory, earning the Section 9 Class AAA championship at James I. O’Neill High School in Highland Falls.

“It feels really good,” senior captain and setter Anabella Almeida said. “We were nervous in the beginning, of course, because every year you come in nervous that the other team is going to beat you, but we had a lot of energy.”

The energy started on the bus ride to Highland Falls, and senior Ellie Hoppe said the Bushmen had a “little dance party,” which may have had a drawback.

The Bushmen won the first set, a hard-fought 26-24 victory, but then dropped the second set, 25-18.

“By the second set I was getting tired,” Hoppe said. “I was like, ‘you guys need to pick this up because I can’t carry this right now.’ But at the end of it, this is our four-year experience, and it was literally the best experience in the world.”

The Bushmen responded in the third set with a 25-19 victory, putting them one set away from another section championship.

“In the second set, we just weren’t playing as a team; we were playing as individuals,” Almeida said. “I think in the third set, we were just like, ‘we need to work together as a team. It’s not an individual game, where there’s six of us on the court all together.’ We have to have a lot of communication the whole time.”

The energy came back after the Set 3 win, but the Crusaders got the first two points of the fourth set and built an 8-4 lead before Monica Ilioiu came to the service line.

All of a sudden, the nerves came back, but Ilioiu got things back on track. Two aces cut the lead to 8-6, and her third ace of the sequence gave the Bushmen a 9-8 lead. By the time the Crusaders got her off the back line, the Bushmen had a 12-9 lead.

They never relinquished the lead and won the fourth set, 25-18, and the streak stayed alive.

“Even if we don’t say it, they walk into the gym, they look at the banner and they’re like, ‘God, we don’t want to be the team that doesn’t go,’” Pine Bush coach Melyssa Amelio said. “In maybe 20 years, I think there’s two that didn’t happen. So, they don’t want to be the one.”

The Bushmen will move on to Wednesday’s New York State Public High School Athletic Association Class AAA subregional contest against the winner of Sunday’s Section 1 championship game between North Rockland and Mamaroneck on Wednesday at Wallkill High School.

“I love this team,” Amelio said. “They’ve been playing with me since volley kids in third or fourth grade. They have a common bond because they’ve been with it forever. I’m happy we pulled through, and hopefully we’ll build on that and learn from our mistakes.”