Morris ready for first game on new turf

MORRIS – There is plenty of excitement in the air around the Morris football team.

The Redskins are coming off a 27-13 win over Rochelle to open a season they didn’t know for sure they would have when the school year started. Friday night will be their home opener, and they get to show off their new artificial turf field, as well as new home bleachers and video scoreboard, when they take on Plano. Plano opened the season last week with a 20-7 win over Ottawa.

“We are excited to be at home on the new turf,” Morris coach Alan Thorson said. “Any home game is exciting, but this is the first one we will play on the new field, so there is that much more excitement. We will show off our new scoreboard – hopefully put a lot of points on it – and have the fans in the new stands.”

Thorson said each player gets four tickets to distribute to family and friends.

“Friday night is Senior Night, so there will be a lot of parents there,” he said. “But hopefully the guys will give some tickets to some of their friends so we have a student section.”

Thorson said Senior Night festivities will honor the seniors on the football team, band, poms and cheerleaders, as well as their parents.

In the win over Ottawa, Plano primarily kept the ball on the ground, rushing 37 times for 176 yards. The ground attack was led by Anthony Licea, who had 79 yards and a touchdown on 15 carries, while teammate Raymond James carried nine times for 51 yards. Carson Gill carried just three times, but he gained 18 yards and scored twice. Quarterback Samuel Sifuentes completed 1-of-2 passes for 12 yards, while the Reaper defense limited Ottawa to just 22 rushing yards. Ottawa quarterback Braiden Miller completed 11-of-14 passes for 130 yards.

“They’re 1-0, just like we are,” Thorson said. “They have some good athletes, especially in the backfield. They will use quite a few guys to run the ball.

“Their defense is aggressive. They like to blitz a lot, which is something we didn’t really see against Rochelle. Rochelle ran a 4-4 defense, and Plano likes to run a 3-4, so that is an adjustment we are going to have to make. It will also be new to us seeing the linebackers blitzing more often.”

The Redskins also had a strong ground game in their season-opening win, gaining 182 yards on 37 carries, led by John Landers’ total of 113 yards and a touchdown on 14 attempts. Quarterback Zack Romak ran nine times for 42 yards and also completed 12-of-16 passes for 109 yards and two TDs.

“We still have some things we need to clean up,” Thorson said. “We had way too many penalties. A lot of them were first-game type of things, so we hope to have that fixed by Friday. We were plus-2 in the turnover battle, but we did put the ball on the ground once, and we pride ourselves in taking care of the ball, so we want to make sure we do that.

“Another thing was our red zone offense. We got a couple of field goals, so we came away with points in the red zone, but those are drives that we want to have finish with touchdowns.”