By Ryan Atkinson
ratkinson@joplinglobe.com
Joplin senior Dane Kolkmeyer was back with the team on Saturday after suffering a frightening injury in Joplin’s 63-48 win over West Plains on Friday night.
Joplin coach Doug Buckmaster said Kolkmeyer was released from the hospital after a few tests and was with the team during Saturday morning’s film session.
“Dane is doing good,” Buckmaster said. “We don’t know if he will return this week or not, but so far he’s fine.”
Kolkmeyer — who had already racked up a full game’s worth of offense — was injured when he caught his third touchdown of the night with 15 seconds left in the second quarter.
He was motionless in the end zone for a few minutes before regaining consciousness and all movement. He was then taken to a local hospital for tests.
“They still need to check couple things out, but he’s doing well,” Buckmaster said.
Kolkmeyer returned the opening kickoff 85 yards for a score and then caught nine passes for 107 yards and three more scores in the first half.
“Dane had a heck of a night in those two quarters,” Buckmaster said. “That is one heck of a half of football.”
Potent offense
The Joplin offense was nearly unstoppable, scoring touchdowns on nine of its 11 possessions.
“We have plenty of room to improve, but we played pretty well on offense,” Buckmaster said. “We executed better than we did in the first week and we had fewer mistakes.”
Joplin quarterback Devin St. Clair was 25-of-33 with 297 yards and six touchdowns. He threw a pair of interceptions, marking the only drives in which Joplin did not score.
Running game success
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.”
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