Kingston’s season ends with loss to Newburgh
Goldbacks break game open in second half en route to 46-0 victory
KINGSTON, N.Y. » A good first half does not a football game make. There’s still the second half. And Kingston High learned that lesson the hard way Friday night.
Newburgh Free Academy scored 37 unanswered points in the second half, undoing all the good the Tigers’ defense did in the opening 24 minutes of their season finale, and rolled to a 46-0 victory in the 114th meeting of the longtime rivals.
It was the eighth consecutive win for Newburgh in this series that began back in 1915. The Goldbacks lead the series overall 57-52 with five ties.
Kingston closed out the shortened “Fall II” season with a 2-2 record.
Dylan Iorlano and Eric Duncan had big games for the (5-1) Goldbacks. Iorlano completed 6-of-8 passes for 131 yards and two touchdowns. He also ran for 55 yards and another score. Duncan rushed 12 times for 162 yards and two TDs.
Behind solid defensive play, Kingston trailed only 9-0 at halftime. On Newburgh’s opening possession, the Tigers stopped it five times inside their own 10 and stalled the drive at the 7, forcing left-footed Mateo Catala to kick a 24-yard field goal. Kingston forced a three-and-out, then stifled another drive on Isaiah Thomas’ interception.
Duncan broke loose for a 52-run, then scored on a 15-yard burst with 35 seconds left in the half to get the 9-0 advantage.
“I talked to them about there’s an old saying that is, ‘Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.’ We got a lot of experience tonight,” Kingston coach Quintin Johnson said. “We played for about 24 minutes and then we
stopped playing. You saw the result of that.”
Kingston’s offense never got on track and was held to 80 yards overall. The Tigers had five turnovers (three fumbles plus interceptions by Anthony Anzalone and Nathan Whyte) and the Goldbacks cashed in four takeaways for touchdowns. A strip and recovery by lineman James Tharpe led to a 12-yard Duncan TD in the third quarter. A fumble a minute later led to Iorlano’s 40-yard scoring pass to Unique Hicks.
Owen Niles recovered a bad snap for Kingston, but Anzalone picked off Dylan Noble on the next play and Iorlano cashed it in for a 51yard TD to Nashaun Johnson. Another fumble as the fourth quarter began led to an Iorlano 8-yard run and a 39-0 lead.
Tharpe, serving as fullback, raced 64 yards with 4:47 left to cap the Newburgh scoring.
Newburgh finished with 445 yards of offense, including 314 on the ground.
“As we said at halftime, “We got a great half, but you got to play four quarters,’” Johnson said. “We came out in the second half. We didn’t finish.”
Kingston loses seven seniors to graduation, but will have a large group of players with varsity experience when it starts practice in four months for the fall season. Returning will be a core group of key offensive and defensive players, including quarterback Dylan Noble, fullback/linebacker Owen Niles and Thomas, a freshman right now.
“We put in a new offense, a new defense. We did a lot of good things,” Johnson noted. “We got guys a lot of experience playing varsity football. It’s unfortunate we couldn’t send the seniors off with the win, but my message again to them was you got a chance to play four games in the middle of a pandemic.”