Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

As a multi-year starter across four different sports the prep career for West High senior Marcus Morgan has been filled with exciting wins and impressive individual performances.

Even with a career already overflowing with special moments Morgan may not have ever been better than he was on Thursday against Dubuque Senior.

Playing for the first time in a month with no official practices with coaches in between Morgan scored five touchdowns and accounted for more than 300 yards of total offense to lift Class 4A eighth-ranked West High (3-0) to a 35-23 road win at No. 9 Dubuque Senior.

“Myself, and the seniors in general, we really had to take charge during those three weeks,” Morgan said. “We were trying to make sure that everybody was getting to practice most of the time and they were which was fantastic and that just shows the type of trust they have in us.”

Morgan was brilliant before West High had the pause button pressed on its season by the Iowa City Community School district electing to start the school year on-line only.

The 6-foot-3, 185-pound Morgan passed for 429 yards and six touchdowns and rushed for 115 yards and two more scores in wins over Liberty high and City High.

Following three weeks of only player-led workouts Morgan was even better on Thursday against the Rams.

Morgan threw for 230 yards and three touchdowns, tossing scoring strikes of 54 and 22 yards to Grahm Goering and 16 yards to Damarion Williams.

The senior quarterback also ran for 71 yards and a touchdown on nine carries in the win.

“Over the time when we weren’t playing we ran a lot of routes, a lot of timing stuff, a lot of 7-on-7,” Morgan said. “We went through basically all of our plays over and over and over and I think that showed a little bit tonight with the timing.”

Morgan is always a difference maker on offense for the Trojans but in the win over Dubuque Senior he was just as valuable on defense and special teams.

After being limited almost exclusively to offense only during his first two varsity seasons Morgan has made a major impact at safety as a senior.

“He’s highly-conditioned and he’s tough and when you have a season like this every game counts,” West High coach Garrett Hartwig said. “There very well could be no tomorrow and we talked as a staff coming back after the three weeks that we have to be in playoff mode now.”

Morgan made five tackles from his safety spot on Thursday, including four solo stops and had a pair of interceptions.

He also averaged nearly 41 yards per punt on six attempts.

“He’s incredibly smart football player but he’s also instinctive,” Hartwig said. “You can’t coach or teach that, players are born with that and he has that.”

Morgan returned his second interception of the game 45 yards for a touchdown to give West High a 35-23 lead with under five minutes to play.

“I grew up playing defense,” Morgan said. “I played middle linebacker back in the youth days. It’s definitely fun. I haven’t played that much the last two years so it’s definitely fun to be on the defensive side again.

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