The Gatewood Gators boys’ varsity basketball team upped its record to 5-2 on Dec. 12, with a 70-43 win over the visiting Young Americans Christian Eagles from Conyers.
The highlight of the night came near the end of the first half, though, when 5-foot-11, 150-pound senior guard Jackson Morris drained a 3-pointer from the right side to put him over the 1,000-point mark for his high school career.
Obviously knowing Morris was on the cusp of a major milestone, his teammates immediately mobbed him with congratulations. The game was briefly suspended, too, so the crowd could properly recognize the achievement while Morris was presented with the record-setting ball.
“I had made three (3-point scores) right before that, so I knew it was right. It felt good off the ‘tips and I just watched it go in,” Morris recalled after the game. “And I mean, after I got it, it was just like a wave of, I don’t really know. It just felt great.”
Heading into the game with 987 points scored, Morris knew that barring disaster he would cross the thousand-point threshold Monday night.
However, he admitted to feeling a little anxious as the game began and it took some time for him to settle in and find his range. Once he found it, though, it became just a matter of time.
“I was struggling a couple of games earlier before this, so to finally get it over with is good. I had it in the back of my head so it’s good to finally get it done,” Morris said. “I actually thought it had happened with the 3-pointer before that one. They’d even stopped the game then, too, but it turned out I was still one point away.”
Morris said he headed into this year’s Gators campaign about 80 points shy of the kilo mark, which means he’s averaged more than 300 points per season. With 15 regular-season games left in his senior year, another 300-point year certainly seems doable.
Gators head coach Don Keiser said he’s “very happy and excited” for Morris, but like his player, he is glad to get the accomplishment out of the way.
“This is really good for him. He’s one of the best 3-point shooters I’ve ever coached and when he gets going, he’s almost unstoppable,” Keiser said. “We’ve really been waiting for him to get going, but he’s kind of been playing unselfish this year. You would think that going for something like this he’d be shooting all the time, but he’s been very unselfish, passing the ball, sometimes when he probably didn’t need to.”
Morris, who has been playing basketball since he was about four years old, has followed in the footsteps of his mother, Jennifer, and his Aunt Julie, who both played basketball when they were students at Gatewood.
He said he wanted to thank them for their inspiration and support, as well as his dad, his coaches and his teammates.
“I want to thank God for giving me this opportunity,” he added. “Not everybody gets the opportunity to do something like this. I’m very grateful.”