Morris battles through knee injuries for C of C

Senior forward Matt Morris leads the College of Charleston soccer team in scoring with five goals in six games, and those are pretty good numbers for a guy without a good leg to stand on.

"His knees are a mess," said Charleston coach Ralph Lundy. "But what he did was train hard all summer so he could come in here in prime competitive shape. He worked on his skills, his fitness, all of his abilities and came ready to play."

The Cougars (4-2) hope to be ready to play again today when they take on South Carolina (3-2-1) at 7 p.m. at Patriots Point.

They'll also be hoping their star player's body holds up.

Brad Nettles
The Post and Courier

Senior Matt Morris has scored five goals in six games for the College of Charleston men's soccer.

The injuries started in high school.

Morris had two ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) surgeries, one on each knee, but still managed to have an outstanding career at T.L. Hanna High School.

He sat out his freshman year at Charleston after shoulder surgery, and reinjured his right knee two years later.

"There are times when I can barely jog or even walk," Morris said. "There's a lot of pain, but you just get used to it. I don't think about it during the game. It's usually the next day when it catches up with me."

Morris says he put a lot of time into his preseason conditioning, motivated by the fact that this is his senior year.

"I just worked really hard over the summer, strength training it, rehabbing it," he said. "I spend a lot of time in the training room. This is my last year; I need to do it right."

So far, he's off to a good start and so are the Cougars, who are on a three-match winning streak, outscoring the opposition 7-2.

Thanks in large part to Morris' efforts, Charleston knocked off 10th-ranked Ohio State, 2-1, and 18th-ranked Brown, 3-1, in last week's Aaron Olitsky Memorial/Nike Soccer Classic.

Morris scored the game-tying goal against the Buckeyes and scored twice in the victory over Brown.

He was selected as the Southern Conference player of the week and was named to the College Soccer News national team of the week.

"I can't say enough about my teammates," Morris said. "We're really playing well together and starting to jell. Everybody gets along great and everybody's motivated to have a good season."

Lundy particularly admires Morris' ability to stay the course through so many injuries.

"He just keeps battling back," Lundy said. "He's so blue collar it's amazing. He just keeps working, fighting, training. He exemplifies our team. He leads by doing, by example. A lot of heart, a lot of courage. He's doing a tremendous job. He's just steadily gotten better."