Sometimes a setback can lead to greater improvement.
That’s something Newburgh Free Academy boys’ soccer coach Matt Iorlano is hoping for after his team’s performance in a scrimmage Thursday against Beacon.

“Up until today, everything seemed to be going well,” Iorlano said. “We didn’t play very well today.”

Things had been going well up until that point, especially at a multi-scrimmage at Goshen, where Iorlano said he liked the speed at which his team played. He said they shared the ball well and played solid defense.

“I think the three teams that we played were not like Beacon that had a lot of pressure on us,” junior midfielder Jesus Martinez said. “They had good movement on the ball.”

But it’s early yet as the Goldbacks look to improve on a 2018 season in which they posted a 10-3-3 record and a 4-2 mark in the Orange County Interscholastic Athletic Association. Their only two league losses were to Monroe-Woodbury, who ran the table during the regular season on the way to the Section 9 Class AA championship.

The Goldbacks ran into the Crusaders again in the Section 9 Class AA championship game, suffering a third loss.

“We’re focused on our main goal, to get to Section 9 final and see if we can go to states,” Martinez said.

The Goldbacks will have to accomplish that after suffering some key losses from last year’s finalist team. They’ve lost Peter Ramirez, Erick Euceda, Kevin Lewis and Brian Nava.

“We’ve got work to do,” Iorlano said. “We’ve got some major holes to fill and unfortunately some of the holes can’t be filled.”

Iorlano said he’s looking for big things from Martinez, Javier Rodriguez and Roy Marin. However, success this year is going to be an entire team effort.

“These are some guys we’re counting on to carry us,” Iorlano said. “There are a lot of guys we’re counting on.”
And Iorlano is counting on his team to recover from Thursday’s scrimmage and to put up better performances during the season.

He expects Monroe-Woodbury to be a tough team to beat again. He said he has heard Pine Bush has improved and Middletown has similar demographics to Newburgh which could be a contender as well.

“I take no one lightly,” Iorlano said. “We can’t look past anyone, and we will not. We’ve got a tough schedule ahead of us.”

Martinez thinks the Goldbacks could be a top team as well.

“I’ve seen good improvement from last year and I think our team has a lot of talent,” Martinez said. “I think we need to work a little more on our passing and talking to each other.”

If the scrimmage Thursday was a setback, it’s the type of thing the Goldbacks can learn from before the season opener Thursday against Middletown at Faller Field.
“Sometimes when you get knocked down a peg, that’s a reason for us to work a little bit harder and try to improve,” Iorlano said.