GALION — It has been a rough first half of the season for the Galion High School football team. The Tigers seen themselves get out of the gate fast with a lopsided victory over Bucyrus, only to drop four straight from there.

But one bright spot has been senior Connor Moreton, the Tigers’ place -kicking specialist.

In the second quarter of last week’s game against Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference foe Jonathon Alder, Moreton put his name in the GHS record books. Connor now owns every kicking record for the Tigers, including the longest successful field goal in school history, a 47-yarder.

That kick bettered the previous record by five yards, but what is more impressive is that it had enough distance to be good from close to 60 yards. The rumor is that Moreton has hit from 60 in practice this season. He leads the team in scoring with 22 points, making 10/10 extra-point attempts and 4/5 field goal attempts.

The only missed field goal was a 53-yard attempt at Buckeye Valley, which had the distance but was just a bit left of the uprights.

Moreton, who’s foot has inherited the nickname, “The Moreton Hammer”, has had quite the high school career in Galion. He has found himself gaining all-league honors in some form since his freshman year.

But football almost never happened for Moreton.

“Soccer was the main sport in the house,” Connor reflects. “My dad came over from England when he was 18, and brought the love of soccer with him.”

Moreton played soccer until there was no more soccer left for him to play. That ended up paying off nicely, as his leg strength was what led him to give football a try.

“I was kicking a soccer ball against a wall during indoor recess in eighth grade,” Moreton says of how he started playing football again. “I played football in my elementary years, but stopped playing once we started tackling.”

It just so happens that current high school coach Todd Roston was monitoring that indoor recess and heard the boom that Connor was causing.

“He asked me to come out to two-a-days over the summer just to see if it was something that I would be interested in doing,” Moreton said with a smile.

Connor realized that he had a knack for kicking the football, as well.

He went from being “that freshman kicker” to the Galion Tigers’ kicking specialist for four years straight now.

The rest, as they say, is history.