THUNDER BAY -- Tallon Morris and his teammates are a hardware-hopeful bunch.
Entering his fifth and final year of high school and yet to win a Superior Secondary School Athletics Association football crown, Morris and company want to go out on top. And if Saturday night’s opener is any indication, his Churchill Trojans may be well on their way.
Of course there are five other teams who will have a say in how far the Trojans go this season, but Morris started the ball rolling with a red-hot start, throwing for 269 yards and five touchdowns as Churchill rolled over the Westgate Tigers 42-0 at Fort William Stadium.
Two of his strikes landed in the hands of receiver Eric Warren, who caught five passed for 120 yards and two scores. Not to be outdone, fifth-year running back Paul Bystrican rushed for 110 yards and a major and caught two passes for 28 yards and another touchdown.
All in a day’s work for a team with a championship mission on their minds.
“We’ve got a bunch of seniors and we all know what our role is,” said Morris, whose only blemish was a goal-line interception, hauled in by Westgate’s Avery Siau, late in the second quarter.
“Coach (Mike) Doromko made us ready for the game and we came out firing.”
Morris praised the Tigers defence, but said they managed to find a few holes at key moments of the one-sided contest.
“We work on that at practice every day, route running, right down to last point,” he said.
Of course, having a receiver with great hands doesn’t hurt the cause.
Morris and Warren definitely clicked in the opener, the final game of three on the day.
“We’ve been working the last two years, after he broke his collarbone, day after day after day, just route running and throwing, to get it right,” Morris said.
Warren said the team wanted to send a message to the rest of the circuit.
“We pride ourselves in our offence and our passing,” the fifth-year receiver said. “Everyone knows how to get open and Tallon knows what everyone is doing. And it just works for us.”
Asked if he was happier with the 42 points the Trojans posted or the shutout, Doromko said he’d take a heaving heaping of both all season long.
“They’re equal, it’s beautiful. But you can’t lose many games if you’re not giving up a point,” the veteran coach said.
But despite the easy nature of the win, Doromko said there’s still things to perfect going forward, knowing the games are just going to get tougher as the fall weather sets in.
“We should have had more,” he said. “We threw an interception in the end zone and there were a few passes where we were a little off. We need to correct that stuff. There were opportunities there to make plays and we missed a few.
“We made a lot, which is good. Forty-two is a good number, but every game we want more.”
Morris hit Scott Lawson on a 10-yard strike to open the scoring three minutes to open the scoring and closed it out in the fourth with a 23-yard scoring pass to Alex Matarazzo.
St. Ignatius 35, Hammarskjold 13: Nic Cull ran for 242 yards and scored twice to lead the Falcons to the win.
St. Patrick 44, Superior Collegiate 6: Travis Pike had touchdown runs of 36 and 11 yards to propel the Saints to a season-opening win over the Gryphons. Superior's lone score came on a Justin Kundrat 33-yard punt return.
