Emmanuel Christian is 9-1 this season and leads the Metro Buckeye Conference by 1½ games over rivals Middletown Christian and Legacy Christian.
Morgan, a 2015 ECA grad who earned second team all-MBC honors as a senior, called serving as the Lions head coach “a surreal thing.”
“I always knew that’s what the Lord had for me, especially at Emmanuel,” Morgan said. “A lot of things that the program gave me, I feel like I have a good connection with the guys and being able to come back and offer them support where they’re at. They made the transition really easy coming up as the assistant under (Coach Brandon Peterson) last year, they really made it easy for me with a really good group of seniors … the transition has been seamless.”
Morgan played and coached under former longtime Lions coach Danny Moore, who retired from coaching in 2023 after a 19-season run at Emmanuel. The basketball court at ECA is known as “Coach Moore Court.”
“He put an unmistakable stamp on everything that we do,” Morgan said. “When you have a legacy like he does, not to mention his almost 250 wins, outside of that, just the kind of person he was and the role model he was for the guys, I think that that’s really stuck with me, obviously, to want to come back and be here.”
The Lions have four assistant coaches who played for Moore as part of their staff.
“I think that’s a testament to him,” Morgan said. “He was a great mentor in leadership. And in the two years that Brandon Peterson was here — those are two really solid guys that care a lot about their players. And that’s something that we really put in high emphasis on the coaching staff.”
The Lions have five seniors — Darryus Myers, Drew Hoying, Nate Hudson, Grayson Lisle and Grady Kohl — who have played a key role in their success. Hudson (18.3 points per game) and junior Josh Witherow (11.3 ppg) lead the team in scoring and often see defensive schemes to keep the ball out of their hands. The Lions have several players who can pick up the slack, Morgan said.
“If teams come in really prepared for those two, we’ve got four or five more guys that can just come in and hit shots and disrupt flow, and we can get out and run a little bit,” Morgan said.
The Lions — who have won nine straight since a season-opening loss to Cedarville — are seeking their first Metro Buckeye Conference title since the 2019-2020 season.
“It’s a tough, tough conference, just a bunch of kids that know how to play how their coach wants them to play,” Morgan said. “You have to go in and game plan hard for their actions, for their defensive alignments, things like that. You never know what a team will come at you with.”
The Lions beat both Middletown Christian and Legacy Christian during the first half of conference play. They’ll travel to both teams in the final five conference games of the season, including a trip to Middletown next Friday, Jan. 16.
“We stretched it out early (against Middletown Christian) and I think that’s a big testament to how we do things,” Morgan said. “We like to start games hot and fast, you know, but we got a couple of good teams in that conference that we don’t take for granted.”
About the Author
