Special efforts lift Morton over West Side

Updated: October 1, 2011 4:38PM

GARY — Morton coach Roy Richards had one complaint about his 6-1 football team.

“We haven’t made many plays on special teams this season,” he said.

That is, until Friday night, when the Governors special teams came up wih not one, but two big plays in their 26-0 win over West Side. And one of those special teams plays came from a kid who tranfered into Morton from West Side.

Jahlil Kahlid ran the second-half opening kickoff 90 yards to turn a relatively close game into a 20-0 Morton lead. Kahlid, who Richards says had not played organized football until recently, would catch a 17-yard TD pass in the fourth quarter to close out the scoring.

“We just wanted to give our first-team guy a break and he came out and made big plays,” Richards said.

It was a well-known guy who began the scoring, and again it was special teams play that set it up. A first-quarter blocked West Side punt left Morton at the Cougars 7-yard line before quarterback Chris McCormack ran it in from to give the Governors a lead they would never relinquish.

McCormack took most of the second half off.

In the second quarter, the Governors caught a break in their second TD drive of the game when a Cougars player intercepted a pass, but fumbled it right back to Morton on the return. The Governors took full advantage with Reuben Rodreguez running it in from 3 yards out to add to the Morton lead.

Morton forced West Side (1-6) into a couple of mistakes in the second quarter when the Cougars had the ball in Morton territory, but threw an interception to end both drives.

It was the Governors’ second straight win since a wake-up call loss to Munster. It was the Cougars’ fifth straight loss before beginning their Northwest Conference season with games at Wallace next week.

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