By Kary Booher (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
NIXA, Mo. – First place in the COC was on the line in Nixa Friday night with Joplin coming to town.
Thanks to Ramone Green Jr., Nixa emerged with sole possession of first place in the COC.
Green rushed for 301 yards on a workhorse of 35 carries, scoring six touchdowns. And it still almost wasn’t enough in a game in which Joplin fell behind 21-0 in the opening quarter and yet pulled within seven points twice.
In the end, Nixa proved to be the real deal, scoring a 49-35 Central Ozark Conference victory just one season after suffering two losses to Joplin, including one in the playoffs.
“We had this game circled on our calendars,” said Green, who missed most of last season due to injury. “But we might see them again, so we knew it was important.”
Simply put, Green electrified an entertaining night in Christian County. He scored on TD runs of 21, 1, 3, 19, 9 and 41 yards, and also hauled in four catches for 37 yards.
His final three touchdowns not only kept Joplin at bay but should warrant a look from any fan if Green posts the videos to his online recruiting portfolio, as they were Barry Sanders-esque.
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The 19-yarder? Oh, all he did was run off tackle, cut in and force a defender to fall, and then zig-zagged outside and made another miss. That one pushed Nixa’s lead to 35-21 with 3:55 left in the third quarter.
The 9-yarder made it 42-28 with 10:51 left in the game. Green ran into a clogged line, bounced backward and then twirled. Somehow he saw daylight and darted to the right corner of the end zone.
Later, he broke off a 41-yarder down the sideline, scoring with 2:22 left in the game.
“A special dude,” Nixa coach John Perry called him.
“Tonight, our goal was to give him 30 to 35 touches. We knew he was the difference in the ballgame,” Perry added. “We’re sitting out there with four wide receivers out there that can really, and they wanted to keep two safeties to keep those guys from hurting them.”
Added Perry, “There was twice that our (assistants) were telling me the next play to run, and he’s not even tackled yet. He ends up scoring. The guy can get out of anything. He’s a Houdini.”
Said Joplin coach Curtis Jasper, “The story of the game was Ramone Green. He was fantastic tonight. We didn’t really have an answer for him. So we’ll give credit there. Nixa’s a great team.”
But ..
“You can’t spot teams 21 points,” Jasper added. “And Nixa’s a great team.”
Nixa took the opening series 73 yards in six plays. Its next series saw quarterback Connor Knatcal throw a rainbow pass over the top that hit Kael Combs in stride, going for a 50-yard TD.
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Joplin lost a fumble on the next series at its own 16-yard line, and Green then scored four plays later. It was 21-0 with 2:31 left in the opening quarter.
“We just weren’t as focused as we usually are,” Joplin junior rusher Quinton Renfro said. “Basically, we had a talk on the sidelines – it’s either do or die. We’re either going to go out sad or bust them in the mouth.”
Joplin’s rally
Certainly, it was a mixed bag of emotions for Joplin. For one, the stunning start came after what Jasper, Gooch and Renfro described as a less-than-focused practice week.
And yet Joplin nearly pulled off the comeback, trailing 28-21 at halftime and 35-28 late in the third quarter.
Credit its smash-mouth football attack, as its linemen up front began to assert themselves. Joplin’s next two series were 80-yard TD drives, the first sparked by a fake punt to the upback on fourth-and-5 from its own 25. That one was capped by Renfro’s 31-yard TD run, the other ending on Gooch’s 5-yard run to the far corner of the end zone.
In between, Nixa had dropped a slant pass that would have been a TD, and then saw a field goal attempt bounce off the left upright.
Green’s 3-yard run followed after Gooch’s, but Gooch gave Joplin momentum before halftime as he and Terrance Gibson connected on a 27-yard crossing pattern for a TD.
Unfortunately for Joplin, it didn’t get the score it badly needed coming out of the halftime gates. It drove to Nixa’s 27, only to see a fourth-down pass batted down.
Soon, Green was off to the races again. And Nixa needed it. Joplin’s 77-yard TD from Gooch to Gibson got wiped out by a holding penalty early in the quarter and, despite Joplin eventually scoring on a Hafer TD catch, there was only 5:57 left.
Perry was as much relieved as encouraged.
“It’s tough when you feel you’ve got to score every single time you have the football,” Perry said. “I felt that pressure, that we have to score every time we had it, because we couldn’t stop them. They were good on offense, too. We got one more stop than they did.”
Nixa 49, Joplin 35
Nixa 21 7 7 14 – 49
Joplin 0 21 7 7 – 35
First Quarter
Nixa – Green 21 run (Kaleb James kick), 9:38
Nixa – Combs 50 pass from Knatcal (James kick), 4:34
Nixa – Green 1 run (James kick), 2:31
Second quarter
Joplin – Renfro 31 run (Joseph Ispen kick), 11:03
Joplin – Gooch 5 run (Ispen kick), 6:43
Nixa – Green 3 run (James kick), 4:00
Joplin – Gibson 27 pass from Gooch (Ispen kick), 1:20
Third quarter
Nixa – Green 19 run (James kick), 3:55
Joplin — Thomas 17 pass from Gooch (Ispen kick), 1:08
Fourth quarter
Nixa – Green 9 run (James kick), 10:51
Joplin – Hafer pass from Gooch (Ispen kick), 5:57
Nixa – Green 41 run (James kick), 2:22
