Sportlight

NFA’s Hurley has high expectations for next year

By Bond Brungard
Posted 6/19/19

The school year is nearly over for Tom Hurley, and the NFA junior is spending June and July playing baseball for the Newburgh Nuclears junior American Legion team.

“It’s a good …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in
Sportlight

NFA’s Hurley has high expectations for next year

Posted

The school year is nearly over for Tom Hurley, and the NFA junior is spending June and July playing baseball for the Newburgh Nuclears junior American Legion team.

“It’s a good experience to play with kids from different schools,” said Hurley, last week as the team was getting ready to play Shrub Oak in Marlboro.
Hurley played for Newburgh Free Academy’s varsity baseball team this spring, and the team had some promise earlier in the season before a tough league schedule halted the Goldbacks’ momentum.

The Goldbacks missed the playoffs, but Hurley said he enjoyed himself as the Goldbacks faced some difficult competition.

“It was fun,” he said. “It was a good experience.”

The Goldbacks won a series against Monroe-Woodbury, a league opponent, but then they lost the series to Middletown and Kingston. “We felt pretty good until we faced Kingston,” he said.

And that came after that early momentum in which Hurley and his teammates thought a postseason berth seemed to be in their future.

“We thought in the beginning we were going to make the playoffs,” he said.
Hurley moved on from that season by trying out and making the Nuclears’ junior team this summer. He’ll return to the Goldbacks next spring for his final season as a senior, and his expectations are simple and forthright when he puts on a Newburgh uniform in 2020.

“Be a pitcher,” he said, “get in the game more.”