Prospect Spotlight: Chris Morales (2018)
Guard Chris Morales is nearing the end of his senior season at Tea Area High School, but it won’t be his last season playing basketball or football.
“I’m actually signing with Minnesota West to play basketball and football this week,” Morales said.
Coming into this season Morales and the Titans are defending State A champs and better yet return a good portion of their roster from the title run. Most expected them to go undefeated or one loss, but that hasn’t been the case. Tea has a 13-5 record going into the last couple games of the regular season, but just because they have five losses doesn’t mean the expectations have changed for Morales and Tea Area.
“We had a little slump when we played some good teams,” Morales said. “But we’ve been able to bounce back and it’s still been a successful season. Our goal has always been to get back to the state tournament and that still hasn’t changed.”
Morales didn’t play a lot of minutes last season, but that didn’t stop him from playing hard when his number did get called. He practiced hard over the summer and was rewarded with a starting spot in his senior year.
He’s had an impact on the defense side this year so far being placed on some of the top defender’s like A.J. Plitzuweit, Carson Rentz, Janke brothers and more. But when junior Noah Freidel went down with an injury in the Madison game, Morales knew someone needed to step up in his absence and boy did he. Morales averaged about 18 points a game in the three games Freidel was injured.
Can't say enough about how impressed I've been with @Morales0Chris, lately. (Averaging around 18ppg last 3 games) I remember his telling me his Soph yr how much he wanted to be on varsity. Well, "Money Mo", you have arrived, sir.#HardWorkWorks
— TITAN NATION (@GoTeaTitans) January 15, 2018
“When Noah went down everyone knew we were going to have to pick up some of the scoring load,” Morales said. “I thought I could help with that, I just really looked at being more aggressive.”
Morales said that mindset hasn’t changed despite the slump.
“We are always focused on becoming a tighter group and trusting each other more out there,” Morales said.
READ: Q & A with Tea Area’s Chris Morales
“Enjoy every moment,” Morales said when asked what he will take away from his senior season. “It goes by quick and then it’s gone forever.”