By John Ring
Published September 9, 2021 in The Burg
I’ve watched a couple decades worth of Silver Streaks football but had never witnessed
quarterback play like I did in Morton on Friday night form a guy with lightning bolts on his
helmet.
There’s been a ton of quarterbacks over the years. Some were more runners, than passers.
Some were very good leaders on the field. Others did a little bit of everything.
But man, Tristan Legate put on a show Friday night. He was lights out, a gunslinger in football
pads and relentless on the field. It was attack, attack, attack. Legate shredded the Potter
defensive secondary and used a lot of receivers who ran good routes, showed good hands and
made some great catches. On the night, Tristan completed 18 of 27 passes, good for 278 yards
and three touchdowns with no interceptions.
He’s also humble. “I found a way to pick on their defense tonight and we executed pretty well,”
said Legate after the game. “We did the best we could against a tough opponent, we just need
to get back at it next week.”
It fell to Legate’s right arm because the Streaks ground game was squashed. In the first
quarter, Galesburg ran the ball five times for a net worth of minus 5 yards. Morton linebackers
roamed in the Streak backfield at will. That’s when Legate went on cruise control, firing darts to
his receivers.
He rolled out right, rolled out left, scrambled and hung in the pocket. He operated from the
shotgun and under the center. He pump faked and bought time. Despite all the passing, Legate
was sacked just once. “My line, I trust them,” said the 5’11” junior quarterback. “I move around a
lot back there but they know where I’m going.”
Legate admitted it was his best game for the Streaks. “Yes, by far it was, I had a good game
against Quincy last year but this was my best game as a Silver Streak. We were confident on
offense and it showed.”
He had a special thing going with Dre Egipciaco, who caught eight passes for 178 yards. You
could tell Legate has confidence in his receivers when he targets them. “I know it looked like I
was just targeting Dre but I tried to spread the ball around. They all caught the ball.”
If the Streaks would have held late defensively and got the ball back-- even deep in their own
territory-- it would have been fun watching Legate trying to work his magic with under two
minutes to go. You can bet Morton fans would have holding their breath after watching him
dissect the Potter secondary all night.
“We need to get better at the little things, clean things up and we’ll get back at it next week,”
said Legate as he left the field.
It was, as they say, a gallant effort by the Streaks who have lost a pair of tough games to start
the Derek Blackwell Era off. And it doesn’t get any easier against Sterling next week when
Western Big 6 play opens up.