Goldbacks fall in overtime in Class AA soccer championship

By Kyle Adams
Posted 11/6/19

In the second game of the night at Faller Field in Middletown, the top-seeded Goldbacks of Newburgh Free Academy (11-4-2) were up against the 2nd seeded, defending state champion Monroe-Woodbury …

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Goldbacks fall in overtime in Class AA soccer championship

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In the second game of the night at Faller Field in Middletown, the top-seeded Goldbacks of Newburgh Free Academy (11-4-2) were up against the 2nd seeded, defending state champion Monroe-Woodbury Crusaders (10-3-3).

When you think about what a championship matchup should be, this is the kind of game you would dream of. Both teams having highs and lows, equalizing each other at times, facing adversity and it ending seemingly as quickly as it started.
In their two regular season matchups, the first resulted in a 2 – 2 tie, after double overtime. NFA won the second 1 – 0.

The Section 9 championship contest started out with the Crusaders controlling many of the possessions, although they couldn’t come up with much. This was a game of moments, and Monroe-Woodbury got theirs about 20 minutes in.

Connor McSherry scored the first goal of the evening at 20:26 and a little over a minute later Petro Klishch scored with 19:10 remaining, giving the Crusaders a 2 – 0 lead, that they would take them into halftime.

After going down 2, the Goldbacks seemed to pick up the pace, however their moment would come later in the game. “We came out with intensity, we just didn’t play well,” said NFA coach Matt Iorlano, of their struggles early on.

The Goldbacks came off surging in the second half, and it was just a matter of time before they got on the board. During halftime, Iorlano tried to wake up his players. “I probably can’t tell you exactly what I said in there, but I blew a little bit of a gasket, kind of woke them up,” he said. “I told them we hadn’t played our game to that point and we were playing soft, they were outplaying us, out hustling us and we looked like we were scared.”

“I challenged them and we came out flying.”
After several close shots, including one off the very top of the goal, Jesus Martinez got NFA on the board at the 32:43 mark in the second half.

Barely a minute later, at the 31:40 mark, Javier Rodriguez tied the game at two, on a free kick, just over the leap of the Crusader’s goalkeeper. Rodriguez celebrated by running around the field with his arms out like he was flying.

It was a hard fought game the rest of the way, with both teams trying to end it before getting to overtime, leading to some aggressive plays. With 8:35 left in regulation Tenmetey Tetteh-Nartey was given a yellow card after a collision with the Goldback’s goalkeeper, Edwin Cuesta.

“He took a beating in there today, he’s gonna be sore tomorrow. He gave us everything he had, he wasn’t even a goalkeeper in the beginning of the season,” said Iorlano. “He converted to play goal for us and he did a hell of a job.”
Cuesta totaled 7 saves in the contest.

With 1:40 left in regulation, another yellow card was given to the Crusaders, this time to Owen Kelly, after a collision with Anthony Murcia, of the Goldbacks.

The game was tied 2-2, leading to overtime, which Monroe-Woodbury would end quickly. NFA received the ball to start and after an immediate shot attempt, the Crusader defense cleared the ball to Tetteh-Nartey, who had an open field ahead.

He drove down the field through a few NFA defenders and his shot was deflected by Cuesta, but he couldn’t maintain control of the ball.

With a little under 2 minutes into the overtime period, the Crusader’s Jesse Schwartz finished off the shot after the ball got away from Cuesta, giving them the 3-2 Section 9 championship victory. Many of the NFA players dropped to their knees in disbelief that their season was over.

“We had two in the first ten minutes of the second half. We pressed hard the whole game and I think maybe we just ran out of gas,” said Iorlano.

For Monroe-Woodbury, both the boy’s and girl’s teams are defending state champions and are looking to repeat, as they both took home the Section 9 championships on Thursday night.

The Section 9 champion Crusaders await the winner of Section 1 – Ossining and Section 4 – Corning-Painted Post for a state quarterfinal matchup on November 9.