It’s been a long and winding road for the Newburgh Free Academy football team to get back to Academy Field.

The Goldbacks were originally scheduled to open their home season on September 8 against Corning-Painted Post, but that game was canceled, and the Goldbacks’ home opener was put off until last Thursday night.

The Goldbacks responded in emphatic fashion, posting a 56-20 win over the Pine Bush Bushmen in the Section 9 Class AA opener for both teams.

“It’s great,” said running back Tajir Walker, who led the Goldbacks with four touchdowns. “We’ve been having away games and haven’t been able to show our fans what we’ve been up to this year. It’s great to play in front of the home fans and showing off for them.”

That’s not to say the Goldbacks haven’t had success away from Academy Field. They opened the season with a 28-6 win over New Rochelle on September 1 and came back after their unexpected bye week to post a 28-6 win over the Minisink Valley Warriors.

That bye week was also interrupted by fits and starts due to the early September heatwave and violent thunderstorms. Now that they’ve entered their league schedule, the Goldbacks have an opportunity to get into a rhythm.

“The last two weeks were the first full weeks we’ve had since the summer, really,” Newburgh coach Bill Bianco said. “In regard to the game, I think we got our groove after the second quarter on both sides of the ball. Like with any early game this season, we’re still trying to improve on a lot of different things, but I was happy with how we got rolling.”

After Xavier Sill had a touchdown called back due to a clipping penalty, Walker got the Goldbacks to the Pine Bush 3-yard line with a punishing 25-yard run, setting up a 3-yard touchdown by Bruce Montgomery.

“We work well together,” Walker said. “It’s like thunder and lightning.”

Montgomery also provided some lightning on the opposite side of the football, returning an interception for a touchdown to give the Goldbacks a 21-0 lead.

That was immediately after Walker thundered to a 9-yard touchdown.

Walker also scored on a 26-yard touchdown run to give the Goldbacks a 28-0 lead and opened the third quarter with a 48-yard touchdown run. He also scored on a 7-yard touchdown run with 6:28 left in the third quarter.

“I’m not surprised when he does what he does,” Bianco said. “We’re always trying to keep spreading the ball around just so you can’t really key on anybody. Tajir had it going tonight. Some of that is him, some of that is the big guys creating that seam up front where we can run the ball and do our thing.”

The Goldbacks gave up one touchdown to the Pine Bush offense, on a 16-yard pass from quarterback Triston Santos to Logan Hawley. The Bushmen’s Jacob Brown recovered a fumble around the Pine Bush 33 and returned that for a touchdown, dragging several Newburgh players into the end zone. Xavier Poole scored on a 5-yard run with 1:33 to go in the game against the reserve defensive players.

“They’re pretty good,” Bianco said. “The score, to someone who wasn’t at the game, might think it’s lopsided, but offensively, they do some good things and they’ve got a couple of kids that can really run. I think we did a good job.”

Sill finally got into the end zone late in the third quarter on a 51-yard touchdown, and Montgomery scored his second rushing touchdown of the day with a 35-yard run.