The Newburgh Free Academy football team rolled into Washingtonville having won five straight, their last two of which were league games.

It could have been a prime spot for a letdown as they looked toward their next matchup, a home contest against the Monroe-Woodbury Crusaders, which will determine Section 9 Class AA regular season championship.

But the Goldbacks took care of business as Tajir Walker scored two rushing touchdowns, and one receiving score in a 36-7 non-league win over the Washingtonville Wizards at Washingtonville High School on Saturday.

“I try to do the best job I could stress to them, and this is an example of taking one game at a time and not overlooking anyone, and trying to improve us, forget who our opponent is,” Newburgh coach Bill Bianco said. “I think we did that.”

The game was never really in question, although it took some time for the Goldbacks to pull away.

Walker carried the Goldbacks’ initial offensive series, running for eight yards, then taking a short pass from quarterback Mason Hoover and taking the ball the rest of the way for a 58-yard touchdown.

Then, things got strange on the Wizards’ first possession. After an incompletion, one of the Goldbacks was sent off the field due to an equipment violation, but after a timeout and while the Goldbacks struggled to get someone on the field, Washingtonville quarterback Kai Bohunicky completed a 40-yard pass to Jake Pierro.

Ten plays later, Bohunicky found Sena Davis in the end zone for a 13-yard touchdown pass to tie the game.

“We have a back flap out, they call them to the sideline and then we get caught on a substitution thing,” Bianco said. “We have 10 men on the field, and they hit us on a 30-yard wheel while we’re all helter-skelter fire drill. And then we got beat on a one-on-one. Definitely a credit to them on that. It was good execution and then hitting the guy that was open when we were kind of scrambling around.”

Pierro and Bohunicky would eventually leave the game due to injury, and the rest of the way was all Goldbacks.

A 31-yard pass from Hoover to Elijah Bevier set up Walker’s second touchdown of the day, a five-yard run to give the Goldbacks a 14-7 lead.

“We started coming together as a team as the game went along and we just started executing,” Bevier said.

Hoover ran in a touchdown as time wound down on the first half, and then the Goldbacks converted the two-point conversion for a 22-7 halftime lead.
Walker added an 8-yard touchdown run in the third quarter, and Jayden Sanchez scored from four yards in the fourth quarter.

This weekend, the Goldbacks will finish the regular season with a home game against the Monroe-Woodbury Crusaders, who, like the Goldbacks, are 3-0 in Section 9 Class AA.

“We’re looking to go in there and dominate and do the same thing we’ve been doing all year: play good football,” Bevier said.

A win on Saturday will give the Goldbacks the week off in the first round of playoffs and put them in the Section 9 Class AA championship game, currently scheduled for November 12 at Newburgh Free Academy.

If they lose, they will host third-seeded Middletown.

Even better for the Goldbacks, they’re getting healthy and saw a bit of a benefit from those early non-league games that star wideout Deondre Johnson missed.

“Looking back, playing without him in those first couple of weeks forced some other guys to step up and carry us,” Bianco said. “Elijah has played great all year and Jun (Rivas) is healthy, too. They’re not getting as much attention and there are one-on-ones for them. They’re good enough to hurt other teams.”