Bulldog defense must contain explosiveness of Meyerkorth

Season Pass by Dennis Cox

Gallatin defenders have fended off 33 pass attempts so far this season. They may see that many more balls in the air this Friday night(Sept. 22). Without question, the Bulldogs face their toughest test yet in the 2000 football season this Friday when they venture to Atchison County to take on the once-beaten Rock Port Blue Jays. Rock Port lost its 3rd consecutive meeting with South Harrison last Friday night, 21-20, but it wasn’t from the lack of effort from Blue Jay senior quarterback Jared Meyerkorth.

The Blue Jays feature one of the best offenses the conference has to offer and Meyerkorth is perhaps the most dangerous individual football player in the league. He can pass, scramble and, in essence, gives the Blue Jays an extra running back in the backfield. He has already completed 30 passes for 564 yards and 6 touchdowns a good season total for most high school quarterbacks. Despite his team’s loss on Friday, he won a personal duel with South Harrison quarterback Cole Leazenby. Meyerkorth completed 15 of 33 passes for 227 yards to Leazenby’s 9 of 19 for 195 yards.

This is not to say the Blue Jays don’t have other weapons in their arsenal. Senior wide receiver Jordan Shrader should have been an all-stater last season. All he has done so far in 3 games is catch 3 TD passes, return a punt for a TD and score on a pair of long counter plays. Junior Nick Gray has caught a touchdown pass in every game. Junior Brent Dahlin rushed for 107 yards against Sidney, Ia. However, junior Jay Hunter is the featured back for the Jays.

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Gallatin wasn’t the only team in the league to start a game Friday night(Sept. 22) without its starting quarterback. Hamilton senior quarterback Brandon Grooms remains in a Kansas City area hospital since last Thursday. Brandon’s yet-to-be-diagnosed illness has left him weak after the loss of 15 pounds.

By all accounts, freshman Caleb Gilgour performed very well in helping to lead the Hornets to a 41-6 victory over Tarkio last week. As far as I know, Caleb is the only freshman quarterback to start a game for Hamilton in at least the last 20 years, and probably not since the Hornets abandoned the single wing offense back in the 50s.

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Now for a recant and some clarification on the softball time limit issue in the HDC Conference.

I incorrectly stated last week that HDC girls games begin at 6:30 p.m. when in fact they start at 6:00. (By the way, I still consider my source to be reliable most of the time.)

The reason for the late starting time is that at one time most of the districts did not have enough buses in order to hold one back from the after-school routes in order to take students to activities in other communities. The 6:00 starting time worked out so buses could deliver students to their homes after school and then take kids to other activities.

A big reason the starting times for girls softball games hasn’t been moved up is due to a shortage of umpires who live in this area. Umps who come any distance have to have time to get here after they get off their regular jobs.

Winston’s Eric Lewis, president of the HDC, sent a letter this week to the MSHSAA asking its softball rules committee to make a rule change that would allow for an optional time limit. It will be interesting to know what their response will be.