The Newburgh Free Academy boys’ basketball team was a little annoyed when the Section 9 Class AA seedings came out.

A regular-season ending loss to the Monroe-Woodbury Crusaders, combined with four other local losses this season, especially in December, sent the Newburgh Free Academy Goldbacks to the second seed in the tournament.

That also left them needing to win two home games to get an opportunity to defend their Section 9 Class AA championship. They took the first step on Saturday afternoon with a 67-51 win over the Washingtonville Wizards at NFA Main.

“I’m never No. 2; I never settle for less,” Newburgh forward Deondre Johnson said. “But we’re going to work our way to No. 1 to show people and to prove to people that we really can be in that position.”

The Goldbacks didn’t get their feet under them until the second half, riding the strength of a 25-10 third quarter that turned a six-point halftime lead to a 21-point advantage heading into the third quarter.

“We just had to make them get off their tempo,” Johnson said. “If we keep them at their tempo, they can play their game, so we just had to get them off track and play our ball.”

Johnson and Jaydan Lorenzo had the first baskets of the second quarter. They both combined for a team-high 17 points each. Johnson also had 12 rebounds.

Aidan Brown scored 15 points, able to knock down a first-quarter 3-pointer, but could take it himself to the basket when he found an opening.

“(Brown), being a relatively bigger guard, he has the opportunity to go downhill,” McAllister said. “So we have an opportunity to get him downhill, or if he sees the opening, he has the IQ enough to realize when the team is open, or also when to take it upon himself to get a nice look for the team.”

After Lorenzo traded baskets with Washingtonville’s Nazier Sanders, who score a game-high 19 points, Johnson’s dunk gave the Goldbacks an eight-point lead, igniting a 10-0 run that gave the Goldbacks some breathing room with a 16-point lead.

“But we weren’t going to take our foot off the gas,” Lorenzo said. “We just had to keep going. They came back a little bit, but we just kept doing what we were doing.”

Saturday’s win set up a third meeting between the Goldbacks and the third-seeded Kingston Tigers on Tuesday at NFA Main. The Tigers advanced with a 54-46 win over the Monroe-Woodbury Crusaders.

“We had a unique season, especially at the beginning and that brought us back,” Newburgh coach Jason McAllister said. “Credit to the teams that we did lose to throughout the entire year. They won and we didn’t.”

However, the Goldbacks had short-term goals and long-term goals. Their short-term goal was to gain the top seed, but that didn’t happen. The only thing they can do now is play the hand they’ve been dealt and win the two games in front of them.

“I felt like we should have been at No. 1, but things happen, and now we’ve got two home games,” Lorenzo said. “We’ve just got to make the best of it and do what we’ve got to do.”

A win on Tuesday will put the Goldbacks in Thursday’s Section 9 Class AA championship game at SUNY Sullivan against the winner of Tuesday’s other semifinal matchup between the No. 4 Warwick Wildcats and No. 1 Middletown Middies.