Morton senior Davion Terry tends to play with an abundance of emotion.
But even against visiting Hammond Central, his former team, the 5-foot-8, 185-pound running back managed to remain focused on Friday night.
“There was a lot of trash talking, a lot of players I knew on that team,” Terry said. “It was a little hard, but I just had to keep my composure because I still have to play next week.
“My pops and my coaches talked to me before the game to get me to keep my emotions in check. Coming into this game, I knew what this game was going to be, so I just played. That’s it.”
But Terry played well too. He rushed for 124 yards and four touchdowns on just six carries as the Governors won 76-0 in a Great Lakes Athletic Conference game. He had scoring runs of 35 yards, 30 yards, 21 yards and 2 yards.
“Davion’s a great kid,” Morton coach Mac Mishler said. “He probably has the highest motor of any player I’ve ever coached. He’s a ‘go, go go go, go 100 miles an hour’ kid all the time. He doesn’t change who he is for anybody. A lot of times, it’s having to pull him back in the right ways. But he’s a great effort kid for us. He’s the energy leader for our team, the emotional leader for our team. So for him to come out and do that on senior night, it’s a really big deal for him, and I’m really proud of him.
“Any time it’s a situation like that where you’re playing against a team where you know everybody on the team, same town, all these kids know each other, it adds another element to the game. There’s going to be some different emotions. I’m sure he came in extra amped up for that opportunity.”
Terry, who praised the offensive linemen and said “I’ll have doughnuts for them on Monday,” entered the game with 567 yards and nine TDs for Morton (5-2). He ran for 1,617 yards and 13 TDs for Hammond Central (0-7) last season.
Freshman quarterback Amari Price, who threw for 190 yards and three touchdowns, is happy to have Terry in his backfield.
“He is a dawg,” Price said. “He meant to go get it. The whole offseason, he’s been going to get it every day. He never took a practice off, and now you see what he’s doing. We executed. I just wanted this game for my seniors.”
Among those seniors, running back Elijah Boone had a 3-yard touchdown run; cornerback Martece Smith, a Toledo recruit, returned an interception 34 yards for a touchdown; and running back Titus Walker capped the scoring with a 4-yard touchdown run.
“We did what we were supposed to,” Mishler said. “It’s a conference game. It’s a rivalry game because it’s our sister school. All the kids are excited for it.
“The last couple of years, we’ve had slow starts to the game before we pulled away. So the challenge this week for the kids was we wanted to start full speed, and we did that. We did what we came here to do. It was a good senior night for our guys, and I’m happy for them.”
The Governors have won four straight games in the city series. Terry, who said he moved, is on the winning side this time.
“The move was a success for me,” he said. “It bettered me. It feels great.”