The Valley Central football team entered Saturday’s game against the Newburgh Free Academy Goldbacks with little time for proper preparation.

They managed to get 11 practices in, especially after getting an extra day when the game was postponed for a day and moved, but the Vikings committed five turnovers, leading to 14 Newburgh points in a 35-0 loss on Saturday afternoon at Monroe-Woodbury High School.

The game was originally scheduled for Friday night at Newburgh Free Academy but was moved because Newburgh and New Windsor are still in a COVID-19 yellow zone.

“I’m proud of my guys,” Valley Central coach Andrew LaVallie said. “We got an extra day this week. We got 11 days of practice. Not having any in person workouts and having to do everything virtual with the guys, I’m proud of what they put together.”

The Vikings played their best football early in the game as they recovered the opening kickoff but couldn’t do anything with it as three plays later, Valley Central senior quarterback Logan Sherwood was intercepted by Newburgh’s Jaden Caballero.
“We had more turnovers than they did,” LaVallie said. “That’s what we talked about early on. We preached on that we have to handle the ball. We can’t have turnovers and can’t give the ball away.”

The Vikings’ defense got its biggest stop after a 6-minute Newburgh drive in the first quarter. Starting at their own 35-yard line after Caballero’s interception, the Goldbacks fumbled the football in the end zone, and the Vikings recovered it for a touchback.

After the Goldbacks took a 14-0 lead on Elijah Bevier’s touchdown run and Newburgh quarterback Dylan Iorlano’s touchdown pass to Caballero, the Vikings engineered their longest drive of the game.

Starting on their own 32-yard line, Sherwood hit Randy Rosario on a 47-yard pass to get the Vikings to the Newburgh 11-yard line. But on the next play, Elijah Bellinger lost 10 yards and then Caballero intercepted Sherwood to end the drive.

“We played a good first half, but we were just unable to execute plays,” LaVallie said. “That comes with time. I expect more things next week.”

The Vikings entered the season with little time to prepare. Even with the extra day of practice, their field has been unusable, and the Vikings have been relegated to practicing on parking lots for the most part.

Plus, they had no current film to study on the Goldbacks heading into Saturday’s game. Saturday was really their first opportunity to go full-speed and full-contact.

“This was our first real test,” LaVallie said. “If this were a regular season, we would have had a live period on day 6. Instead, this season on day 6, there’s snow on our field and we’re still on a parking lot.”

The Vikings changed things up at the quarterback position, substituting junior Dylan O’Banks, last year’s starting JV quarterback, for Sherwood, last year’s varsity backup.

“We knew coming into the game that we wanted to give them both opportunities,” LaVallie said. “But we also knew we didn’t want to take the reins from (Sherwood) very quickly. We wanted to get him into a game flow and see where we could go from there.”