The Newburgh Free Academy Goldbacks got at least two of their missing players back.

However, still short a few players, they had more than enough, riding 21 first-half points to a 27-0 win over the Valley Central Vikings in a Class AA football game at Valley Central High School in Montgomery.

“It was great,” said Nyeir Johnson, who was unable to play in the previous week’s win over the Kingston Tigers. “I was missing it, but I came back and I was ready to play.”

Johnson carried the Goldbacks’ offense scoring all three of the Goldbacks’ first-half touchdowns as they built a 21-0 lead.
“It was just blocking and just finding a hole,” Johnson said. “We were getting right to it and executing the plays.”

The Goldbacks were methodical from the first drive of the game, as they chewed five minutes off the game clock in a 65-yard drive that ended with Johnson’s 1-yard touchdown run.
The opening drive featured a five-headed running attack of Jaiseon Barnwell, Austin Lilla, Denvyr Herring, Zaire Jacklyn and Johnson. However, Johnson carried the load on the second drive, carrying the ball six times and catching one pass. He finished with a 4-yard touchdown run to give the Goldbacks a 14-0 lead.

That drive also took almost five minutes.
The third drive was similar but only took two minutes with Johnson carrying the load again, finishing with a 7-yard touchdown run to give the Goldbacks a 21-0 lead with 3:20 remaining in the second quarter.

“Nyeir has done that all year,” Newburgh coach Bill Bianco said. “He’s a good player. He’s multi-faceted and he obviously can run the ball. He can block, and defensively he’s good, too. It helps when we have them and we shut them down today.”

The Vikings, meanwhile, had few answers for the Goldbacks’ offense, as they beat the Vikings up at the line of scrimmage. The Goldbacks’ offense didn’t stall until the third quarter when a fourth-down incompletion on the Valley Central 16-yard line turned the ball over on downs.

The defense, meanwhile, kept the Vikings’ offense under control. They only got as far as the Newburgh 35-yard line in the closing seconds of the first half; Quarterback Andrew Waite completed a pass to Triston Wright as time expired.

The Vikings got to the Newburgh 12-yard line when time ran out on the game.

“I thought we did a pretty good job defending the pass,” Bianco said. “They caught a couple here and there, but that’s going to happen. I thought we contained the quarterback and then got to him and made his clock quicker. It helps the coverage when the D-line is getting there quicker.”

The Goldbacks’ finished the scoring in the fourth quarter when Barnwell threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to Tavio Johnson.

“We’re feeling good,” Johnson said. “We’re coming off a Middletown loss, but we just bounced back with these two wins against Kingston and Valley Central, and we’re ready to compete.”

It’s now onto the Section 9 Class AA playoffs, where the second-seeded Goldbacks will host the Pine Bush Bushmen on Friday at Academy Field in Newburgh. The Goldbacks beat the Bushmen, 48-13, on Oct. 9 at Thomas Lonergan Field in Pine Bush.

“We’re feeling good,” Bianco said. “We feel like if we play our game, we’re good enough to beat anybody locally. It doesn’t mean we’re going to, but we think we’re a good team. We think if we we’re doing what we need to do, we’ve got a chance against anybody.”