Keon Lattimore suffered a high ankle sprain in high school and a shoulder injury last season. However, he has come back and has combined with Lance Ball to make the Terps’ running game the offense’s biggest threat.

Midway through the second quarter of the Terrapin football team’s win over Middle Tennessee, junior running back Keon Lattimore thought he had reached pay dirt.

Two yards from the goal line, Lattimore burst through the offensive line and seemed to have no trouble stretching the ball into the end zone. The crowd erupted and players raised their arms in the air to signify a touchdown.

One problem: The referees didn’t see it that way, and even after a review, head official Ken Williamson announced that the replay didn’t show conclusive evidence of the touchdown, bringing a retort of boos from the crowd.

“[Lattimore] was pissed,” junior running back Lance Ball said. “He was pissed the whole game. You could see it on his face the whole game.”

The call didn’t make any difference in the grand scheme of things as senior Sam Hollenbach scored on a quarterback sneak on the next play, and that game is now a distant memory, overshadowed by the team’s 45-24 loss to West Virginia.

But even after missing out on that touchdown and rushing for only 42 yards against the Mountaineers, Lattimore is excelling by showing off his sharp running skills just months after shoulder surgery. His confidence is razor-sharp, too.

“Definitely, without question, without a doubt, this is the best I’ve ran,” Lattimore said.

It’s not the first time Lattimore has fought back from an injury. During his senior year at Mount St. Joseph’s High School, Lattimore suffered a high ankle sprain and missed the final six games of the season.

Still, the injury couldn’t prevent him from rushing for 643 yards and 11 touchdowns, catching four touchdown passes in only seven games. Redshirt freshman wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey said Lattimore is flashing back to that form.

“His senior year [in high school] was the last time I saw him run like that, on Thursday [against West Virginia],” Heyward-Bey said. “He’s come a long way.”

Making crisp cuts and churning up yards, Lattimore said he’s bringing back memories of his high school play.

But to get to this point he has had to work through two injuries that affected his body and his psyche. The ankle injury forced Lattimore to miss out on the senior-year traditions, but he was hopeful nevertheless, seeing college as another chance to play.

Lattimore dislocated his shoulder during his freshman season and was part of the starting competition as a sophomore. He started two games, but gained only 181 yards on 58 carries for the season because he was hampered by a right shoulder injury. While Ball assumed the starting role during the season and into spring practice, Lattimore suddenly dropped off the depth chart.

Dec. 28, Lattimore underwent a six-hour operation to repair the shoulder damage and faced a projected seven-to-nine-month recovery. Even though he was used to adversity after high school, Lattimore said the emotional impact was 10 times worse than what he experienced when he suffered the ankle injury.

“Anything worth working for isn’t easy,” Lattimore said. “Just the whole rehabbing process, getting my shoulder back into shape, getting up early in the morning in the summer on my off-days working out, running hills. It’s been hard.”

Lattimore has been instrumental in the Terps’ ground domination, having compiled 217 yards on 41 carries. And though Ball leads the team in touchdowns, Lattimore owns the most rushing yards (228 yards), highest rushing average for running backs (5.3 yards per carry) and longest run of the season (34 yards).

Before the season, coach Ralph Friedgen said he didn’t want to think of any running back as a third-stringer, adding he considered senior Josh Allen, Ball and Lattimore as 1A, 1B, 1C (in no order).

Allen still isn’t 100 percent recovered from the severe knee injury he suffered in the 2004 season finale. Having only 10 carries, Allen has shown a few flashes of speed in his 32 yards.

But the Terps haven’t counted on Allen for much. Against West Virginia, the senior carried the ball only twice for a total of six yards. As Allen works to regain his pre-injury form, Ball and Lattimore have stepped into complementary and competing roles.

“Coach [Friedgen] said that we would all get carries. Pretty much that’s how it’s been-They’ve been using all three of us,” Lattimore said. “There’s a lot of competition, but that’s up to the coaches. I just come out here focused, and I go hard and try to go 110 percent every play.”

Ball, who amassed 903 yards on 189 carries as the workhorse running back last season, doesn’t have to shoulder the load since Lattimore’s shoulder has healed.

Even though he’s satisfied to have completed the long road back, the short distance between Lattimore and the end zone against Middle Tennessee is still frustrating for a guy who’s earned every carry he gets.

And Lattimore’s confidence hasn’t wavered; he said the shoulder injury masked how good he has always been.

“I knew once I got my shoulder better it would enable me to do what I do,” Lattimore said. “I knew I was back, man.”

Contact reporter Stephen Whyno at whynodbk@gmail.com.