The Dallas County seniors honored fallen teammate Shadrick Turner before Friday night’s game against Southside by locking arms and carrying a banner in tribute to Turner onto the field with them.

Turner, who died after nearly drowning in a pool during Memorial Day weekend earlier this year, would have been a senior this season.

“We play without him but somehow he is still here in spirit,” Dallas County’s Justin Chandler said. “We’ve got his banner on our field and his number in our end zone. He’s here in spirit and we believe that.”

The Dallas County seniors came out of their banner Friday night at Southside with arms locked and walked onto the football field for the final time as Hornets.

To honor Turner, they held his banner as they walked, because Friday night would have been Turner’s final game as well.

“Being out here without him, there is a void,” Benjamin York, one of Dallas County’s seniors, said. “Our football team isn’t complete without him out here. He was family so being out here without him is just surreal.”

The Hornets have honored Turner by painting his No. 23 in their end zone for every football game and wearing armbands with his name and number on them.

“I had all the admiration in the world for him,” Dallas County head coach Barry Colburn said. “He’d come off the practice field and he’d go sit at his locker and he was whipped because he left it all out here on the practice field.”

Colburn said his team misses Turner’s leadership in the locker room.

“He was a great student and made his grades,” Colburn said. “He was never in any kind of trouble. We lost a great person. We lost a great teammate.”

Colburn said Turner “hated to lose” and that his “leadership and push towards excellence” would have helped his team tremendously this season.

Turner played middle linebacker for the Hornets, making all of the defensive calls. Colburn said he felt Turner had the physical tools to play football at the next level and that four or five college coaches had been impressed with him.

“I anticipated him moving onto the next level and playing at the next level and then turning around and coming back and being that inspiration for some of our young kids,” Colburn said.

With Friday night’s loss to the Panthers, Dallas County’s season is over. For the Hornets’ seniors, their high school playing career is over, but Colburn said Turner’s legacy will continue to live on at Dallas County for a long time.

“I think he should be an inspiration to us for years to come,” Colburn said. “His banner will either be [on the fence] or on the walls in the dressing room for years to come.”

He also plans to continue painting Turner’s number in the endzone.

“As long as I am here, I kind of got used to having No. 23 in my end zone, so I am going to do that,” Colburn said.