The Eagles paired their big passing night with a good ground game, including a second straight impressive outing from Ron King.

King — who did not start for undisclosed reasons — entered in the second quarter and rushed 28 times for 148 yards.

“Ron did a good job for us again,” Buckmaster said. “He didn’t start and that’s an internal situation, but he came in and ran the ball well.”

St. Clair ran for 53 yards and two scores on 10 carries while Quinton Fenske started and rushed five times for 36 yards before suffering leg cramps and being replaced by King.

“Quinton stepped in and ran hard,” Buckmaster said.

Defensive problems

While the Eagles had no problems scoring points, they struggled in stopping West Plains.

The Zizzers racked up 507 yards of offense — 298 on the ground and 209 through the air — but Buckmaster said he feels much better about the Eagle defense after seeing the game film.

“Last night I was of the opinion that we were just kind of bad on defense,” Buckmaster said. “But I watched the film and the kids played hard. I didn’t see one loaf the whole game. Our problems were mainly with wrong alignments and wrong gaps, which is something we can fix.”

As good as advertised

Zizzer running back Tommy Meyer showed why he is considered by some as the area’s top runner.

The 5-foot-7, 200-pound Meyer rushed 20 times for 207 yards and five touchdowns.

“What people don’t understand is that the kid is a world-class lifter in the weight room,” Buckmaster said. “He’s powerful and he runs a 4.6 (40-yard sprint) ... you’ve got to be willing to tackle him or he’ll run you over.”