An up-and-down regular season had Morris flying under the radar in the Class 5A playoffs.
“We’ve had a young team and I joke like we’ve kind of become this forgotten team,” coach Alan Thorson said. “People think this is a down Morris team. I think we just needed time to grow and learn from some of our mistakes early on.”
That growth was evident on Saturday evening, and as a result Morris is back in the state semifinals for the 15th time in program history.
Brady Varner passed for two touchdowns and ran for another, the defense and special teams forced four early turnovers and Morris beat Morgan Park 21-7 at Gately Stadium.
Morris (8-4) plays at Joliet Catholic (9-3) next weekend in the latest installment of one of the state’s premier rivalries.
Morris lost its last two regular-season games, allowing 90 points, to squeak into the playoffs at 5-4. But senior center Dakota Goff expected a turnaround.
“We took those losses and instead of pondering on them, we learned from them,” Goff said. “And we came together as a team. Those losses weren’t bad things for us.”
Morris went ahead less than 90 seconds into the game and never trailed. Two plays after Morgan Park (10-2) lost a fumble on its second offensive play, Varner hit Illinois baseball recruit Jack Wheeler for a 24-yard touchdown pass.
Morris had three more takeaways in the first eight minutes of the game — two on fumbles and one on an interception.
“Morgan Park’s got some athletes and some really, really good team speed,” Thorson said. “I thought we did some things to confuse them and get them off their game.”
That’s what happened, according to Mustangs coach Chris James.
“I do want to commend them,” James said. “They did some things defensively way differently than [they did] on tape. … They played a lot of coverages, they played a lot of different fronts.”
But Morgan Park’s defense also stood tall. Morris had only two first downs in the first half, and one was by penalty.
“It was kind of a chess match for a while,” Thorson said. “We were struggling to score. We made some adjustments, went to more of our power game in the second half.”
And Varner had another big completion, a 24-yarder to Ethan Mombrue on fourth-and-three for a TD that made it 14-0 at 4:42 of the third quarter.
“We thought we were going to throw the ball this game,” Varner said. “But we just had to run the ball because the line was doing good.”
Varner finished 7 of 11 passing for 66 yards and two touchdowns. Caeden Curran helped keep the clock running with 15 carries for 77 yards and Griffin Zweeres added 40 yards on 18 carries.
Morgan Park made it a one-score game again when Terrance Gurley scored from a yard out with 1:27 left in the third quarter. But Morris then ran off more than eight minutes on a 13-play drive capped by Varner’s one-yard sneak. That made it 21-7 with 5:14 left and Morgan Park couldn’t respond.
Gurley had a game-high 98 yards on 21 carries for the Mustangs and senior quarterback Marcus Thaxton was 9 of 17 passing for 67 yards with one interception.
Morgan Park was trying to become the first Public League team to reach the semifinals since 2017, when Phillips and Raby both did.
“Feeling like you had everything that you needed — this is really, really painful,” James said. “This is one of the most painful moments I’ve had as a coach.
“[But] much, much respect to those coaches. We’ve just got to take care of the ball better.”