The Newburgh Free Academy Goldbacks had built a three-touchdown lead, and the Middletown Middies had cut it down to eight points late in the third quarter.

That’s when Bruce Montgomery put the offense on his back.

Actually, he had already scored three touchdowns, so he was really putting it back on his back.

The Goldbacks took over on their own 23 yards, and Montgomery carried the ball nine times on a drive that ended with his fourth touchdown of the game, as the Goldbacks stole the Middies’ momentum and helped lift the Goldbacks to a 35-13 win on Thursday night at Faller Field in Middletown.

“(That touchdown) was really important,” said Montgomery, who finished the game with all five Newburgh touchdowns. “They were coming back, and we had to show them who’s really the dog.”

Montgomery started that drive with a 34-yard run and carried the ball five times in the Goldbacks’ first six plays to get the Goldbacks to the Middletown 30-yard line as the third quarter ended.

Five plays into the fourth quarter, he plunged into the end zone from four yards out to give the Goldbacks a 28-13 lead with 8:59 left in the game.

“B.J. is a very good player,” Newburgh coach Bill Bianco said. “We knew that last year. We knew that this year. He’s just getting an opportunity to show what he can do. Once again, it’s not really a surprise for any of us, to be totally honest. He’s so talented. He’s physical. He’s fast and he’s got great agility.”

The Middies weren’t done yet, but an interception by Newburgh’s Cole Mullarkey gave them the ball on the Middletown 36-yard line.

“That really got us going,” Montgomery said.

After a touchdown pass was called back, Montgomery ran 35 yards to the 1-yard line. Many thought he was in the end zone.

“The ref said I wasn’t,” Montgomery said.

Two plays later, he was.

“Football is a game of adjustments,” Bianco said. “As the game goes on, they’re going to make tweaks. We’re going to make ours. It’s a chess match and we’re doing good things. They take it away. Then we get a counter. That’s football.”

The Goldbacks got off to a fast start as Montgomery scored three first-quarter touchdowns giving the Goldbacks an early 21-0 lead.

He started with a 76-yard touchdown run, scored his second touchdown from seven yards out and his third from five yards out.

But that’s when things slowed down for Newburgh as the Middies got on the board on a five-yard quarterback keeper by Anthony Russo. The Middies added their second touchdown, cutting Newburgh’s lead to 21-13 with 7:41 left in the third quarter on a seven-yard run by Julani Graham.

“They got it going a little bit, and sometimes it’s hard to break out of that once it’s going, but I’m proud of the product at the end of the game. We finally made a couple of plays to flip the momentum.”

The last two weeks have flipped the momentum of the Goldbacks’ season. After a 2-2 start, the Goldbacks have won two straight Class AA games and are in second place in Class AA behind the Monroe-Woodbury Crusaders.

They’ll play their next league game on Friday on the road against the Pine Bush Bushmen before finishing their league schedule on Oct. 25 at Academy Field against the Kingston Tigers.

“We’re not young and inexperienced,” Montgomery said. “We showed when it’s hard times, we could fight back.”