Football:  Warriors Shutout Morris 21-0

Boxscore
Golden Warrior Radio Broadcast

On a rainy, windy, muddy night at Roscoe Eades Stadium in Sterling Friday, the SHS Football team put itself back in the hunt for the NCIC-Reagan championship with a convincing 21-0 win over the Morris Redskins.

The two teams sloshed through the mud and battled to a scoreless tie at halftime with both squads missing out on red-zone scoring opportunities.  Sterling was stopped on downs after a 15-play march.  Ryan Billings thwarted a Morris scoring opportunity with an interception in the end zone.

Sterling’s defense put the Golden Warriors on top early in the third quarter, as sophomore safety Alejandro Rivera intercepted a pass and motored 33 yards up the left sideline and into the end-zone for Sterling’s first defensive touchdown of the season.

The defense set up Sterling’s next score.  Two plays after the Rivera “pick-6”, junior Tyler Balsley intercepted a pass at the Morris 40 yard line.  Two plays later, Sterling’s leading rusher Corey Judd broke free for the first time in the game and scampered 38 yards for the touchdown – his 12th rushing touchdown of the season.

Drew Neubauer then hit Judd with a screen pass for the two-point conversion and a 14-0 Sterling lead. 

Sterling played keep-away for the remainder of the game, as Sterling’s defense held Morris to just one first down for the first 22-minutes of the second half, while the offense controlled the clock with an efficient power-running attack.

The exclamation point came in the fourth quarter when Sterling’s Chevy Bushaw broke loose on a 52-yard touchdown up the left sideline, breaking numerous tackles on his way into the end zone.

Sterling out-gained Morris on the ground 274-50.  Sterling is now 38-2 when rushing for 250+ yards under head coach Greg King.

Bushaw rushed for 117 yards, while Judd added 115 more. It is the third straight week Sterling has had two 100+ yard rushers.

Sterling (4-2, 2-1) has won three straight and now faces road tests at Streator and Dixon the next two weeks.  The Golden Warriors close out the regular season at home October 23 against LaSalle-Peru.

It was Morris’ first conference loss of the season, creating a four way tie for first place - Sterling, Morris, Geneseo and LaSalle-Peru all have one conference setback.  LP travels to Geneseo this week.

Morris dominated Sterling on both the freshmen (43-8) and sophomore levels (39-0).