Taylor Smith, Sports Editor
On February 7th at Eagle Grove Elementary, the Eagle Grove boys had built a comfortable 29-18 advantage over North Iowa just before halftime.
Senior Jaxon Morris knew he was close to 1,000 career points. In fact, he’d been thinking about the milestone since his teammate Drake Canavan achieved the same feat a season ago.
“Abe Lin wanted me to get the 1,000 points,” Morris remembered when asked about the special moment. “He kept giving me the ball and telling me to shoot. He said that he was going to set me a screen. There were 10 seconds left in the 2nd quarter. Abe set me a screen and they didn’t switch. I was wide open. I took the three and I made it.”
The guard finished the night with four three-pointers, 21 points, and a permanent place in Eagle Grove’s record books. To any fan who has been paying attention for the last four years, Jaxon’s success is no surprise.
Morris is a high basketball IQ gym rat and enjoys attending open gyms as often as he can. He averaged 5.4 points per game as a freshman and improved to 14.1 as a sophomore. This season, his 338 points rank him tenth in the entire Top of Iowa Conference.
His high scoring senior campaign has been especially significant with the addition of a familiar face on Eagle Grove’s bench. Jordan Morris, Jaxon’s older brother, is a 2023 graduate of EGHS and now serves as an assistant coach for the boys basketball team.
Despite all of Jaxon’s success on the court, he still values his big brother’s advice.
“We’re close,” he admitted. “If I’m having a bad game, he’ll just help me out and tell me to calm down. He’ll tell me what he’s seeing and what I can do. He’s smarter than I am at it, so I listen to him.”
