Late rally lifts Goldbacks past Pine Bush

By Mike Zummo
Posted 10/17/19

Trailing by 14 points late in the second quarter, the Newburgh Free Academy football team needed a spark.Yasir Arnold provided it.

After the Pine Bush Bushmen widened their lead on a Kenneth …

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Late rally lifts Goldbacks past Pine Bush

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Trailing by 14 points late in the second quarter, the Newburgh Free Academy football team needed a spark.
Yasir Arnold provided it.

After the Pine Bush Bushmen widened their lead on a Kenneth Holland touchdown, Yasir Arnold took the ensuing kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown. Then on the last play of the quarter, Amarri Tice connected with Syncere Tatum on 56-yard touchdown pass to tie the game.

Then the Goldbacks scored 17 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to pull out a 45-35 win over Pine Bush at Thomas Lonergan Field.
“This is a huge win,” Tice said. “It sends a huge message to Section 9 that we’re not overrated. We’re not being overlooked.”

The win keeps the Goldbacks undefeated as they march toward a meeting with Class AA’s only other unbeaten team, Middletown on Oct. 25.

It wasn’t the only time the Goldbacks (5-0, 4-0 Class AA) had to claw their way back. They also had to do it in the fourth quarter.

“Most teams usually put their heads down in situations like this,” Tice said. “We had to just keep fighting.”
Entering the quarter trailing 35-28, a bad snap through the end zone on a punt gave the Goldbacks a safety, and then they had a short field after the ensuing free kick. A pass from Tice to Jaden Caballero set up Nick Patterson’s 7-yard touchdown run.

Then, Tice’s 2-point pass to Caballero gave the Goldbacks a 38-35 lead.

“Thanks to (Newburgh) Coach (Bill) Bianco, he’s coming out with different formations to pass the ball,” Arnold said. “It evens things out.”

Then after stopping the Bushmen on four down, a 23-yard run by Patterson set up Arnold’s 6-yard scoring run to give the Goldbacks a 10-point lead.

“The big thing was getting the stops defensively and we have to do better on the option stuff,” Bianco said. “I didn’t like how we defended that. We’ll have to clean that up.”

The team’s traded scores in the first quarter as Patterson and Pine Bush’s Gunnar Meland put up 15-yard touchdown runs. A 70-yard pass from Tice to Arnold set up Tatum’s 4-yard touchdown run to give Newburgh the lead again before Holland tied the game with a 56-yard touchdown pass to Ethan Velez.
The second quarter belonged to the Bushmen, at least for 11 minutes, as a 27-yard touchdown run by Khristian Walker and 42-yard run by Holland gave the Bushmen a 28-14 lead with 1:21 remaining.

“I’m very happy with our resiliency,” Bianco said. “We could have had teams in the past that could have folded right there. To be honest, we had some really big plays and they made some explosive plays.”

Arnold was the most explosive, fielding Lorenzo Nunez’ kickoff on his own 4-yard line.

“I came out and saw the scoreboard and looked at my teammates faces, and they were all depending on me,” Arnold said. “I caught the ball and I did what I did.”

What he did was race and weave his way through the Pine Bush kickoff return unit to pull Newburgh to within 7 points.

Then, after a defensive stop, Tice threw the ball up on the half’s final play, hitting Tatum in stride to tie the game.

“My quarterback just put the ball in my hands,” Tatum said.

That puts the Goldbacks on their way to a meeting with Kingston to celebrate Homecoming on Friday night.

“It’s a big win,” Tatum said. “My guys stepped up big and we got the job done.”