The 2024 campaign came to an end for the Russellville High School varsity baseball team last Thursday night as the Golden Tigers were swept at home by Springville and eliminated in the quarterfinals of the AHSAA 5A playoffs.
“It’s never easy finishing a season, and no matter how it ends, it’s always heartbreaking,” Russellville head coach Jess Smith said. “You want to play perfect baseball and your brand of baseball, but sometimes things just don’t go your way. You’ve got to tip your cap to Springville. They’re a great team, a young team, and you know they’re going to be around as a top opponent in 5A in the north in the years to come.”
The Golden Tigers were shut out 6-0 and 3-0 in the two games hosted by Russellville. Both teams relied heavily on the performances of their pitching staffs. For Russellville, its errors on defense were most costly as only four of Springville’s nine total runs were earned. On offense, the Golden Tigers were unable to scratch runs across with runners on base.
“A lot of the errors—they were errors, no doubt—but a lot of the errors weren’t routine plays. Springville did a good job of putting pressure on us and making them really, really tough plays to make,” Smith said. “Offensively, we usually do a good job of getting runners in scoring position frequently. We don’t always succeed at a high clip, but we usually put ourselves in opportunities to be successful in that respect. I think Springville’s pitchers did a great job of attacking our hitters and executing on their scouting report. We just couldn’t get that big hit when we needed it.”
Senior Cayden Johns got the start on the mound for the Golden Tigers in game one. Johns tossed a complete game, seven innings, and allowed six runs, just two earned, off nine hits. He had one strikeout.
“I think Cayden Johns had his best pitching performance of the postseason in that game,” Smith said. “Unfortunately we just weren’t able to make some of those plays behind him defensively. He kept competing hard and that’s what you want from the guy out there on the mound.”
Springville’s breakthrough came in the third inning on a groundout that scored a runner from third base. The Tigers scored once in the third, another two in the fourth and fifth, and added a final run in the top of the seventh.
Game two was an even tougher struggle between the two Tiger squads. Pitching, once again, kept both teams reigned in. Russellville and Springville had just three hits each in the contest.
“It was tough and it was a real fight,” Smith said. “Our offense wasn’t clicking, but there was no doubt that when Brandt (Cummings) went back out there he was going to get us back in the dugout pretty quick. It felt like, you know, we’re not doing it right now, but we’re going to because Brandt’s giving us a chance to bust this thing open.”
Cummings, Russellville’s starting pitcher, made it through three innings before cramps forced him off the mound in the fourth.
“Brandt Cummings was locking up from cramps it seemed like every other pitch there in the fourth,” Smith said. “He’s competing, he’s battling and then he starts cramping…his hamstring was like a piece of rebar when he came out of the game. He couldn’t go. And I hated it for him in that situation because he was battling.”
Springville scored all of its runs in the fourth with the three runs allowed falling on Cummings. He exited with seven strikeouts and just two hits allowed when he was relieved by Ty Engelthaler, who saw out the rest of the game.
Down 3-0 coming out of the bottom half of the fourth, the Golden Tigers looked like they would respond in the top of the fifth. After a leadoff single by Eli Boutwell and a fielder's choice, Russellville had a man on first with one out. That’s when a couple of back-to-back decisions by umpires in the field—decisions much disputed by those in black and gold—killed whatever momentum Russellville had in that half inning and ultimately saw the head coach ejected from the game.
“I don’t want to make anything personal with anybody, with officials. But I’m going to fight for our guys and defend them when I think they need to be fought for,” Smith said. “Our guys deserve for me to go fight for them there.”
What set Smith off on the officials first was when Gunner Sappington was called out in an attempt to steal second, a call Smith strongly disagreed with and made sure the umpire knew it. That made it two outs. Then, in a tight footrace to first base, Michael Scofield was called out for the final out of the inning. It was Smith’s fiery tirade after this call that sent him into the locker room early. Both of the decisions, Smith said, were mistakes.
“I can go on and on all day about the calls that were missed and it’s my belief that they were missed,” Smith said. “They were the wrong calls and they came at the wrong time. Unfortunately, sometimes that’s how the game goes. It’s really, really unfortunate, but I hope everyone understands I’m going to fight for our players in those moments and defend them because I know they deserve better.”
“I hate that (the ejection) took me away from them, but they didn’t blink. They kept competing and that’s all I’ve ever asked for them to do,” Smith said.
Despite Smith’s haranguing of the umpires’ calls on the field, he said it’s not an excuse he wants to use for the final result.
“At the end of the day we’re not going to make it about umpires being the reasons behind wins and losses,” he said. “We didn’t execute in other moments that could have made those moments not matter, but it wasn’t from a lack of effort. Again, I think Springville did a good job of executing their scouting report on our hitters and that was combined with some things just not going our way.”
Smith’s ejection did, in a noticeable way, fire up the home crowd in the standing-room-only stadium and the players, but in the end the Golden Tigers didn’t have enough firepower in the game to crack Springville.
The loss eliminated the Golden Tigers in the quarterfinal round for the second straight year. The team finished with a 27-12 overall record. Smith said going out is always hard, but he said it’s especially hard to see this senior class, a class that compiled a 126-47 record and two state titles, move on.
“It’s especially heartbreaking for our seniors, who I felt like they deserved a chance to go further; they certainly worked hard enough to,” Smith said. “The worst part of it is always saying goodbye to the seven young men, who impacted not only the program but the school and the community and had an impact on my life as well.”
The disappointment in the result of the series and in the end of the season is real, Smith said, but he hopes that both the players graduating and the returning players will take away lessons from it.
“Sometimes I think that the lesson is greater than the outcome. At the end of the day, we have to evaluate what we’re doing and as high school coaches, as much as we want to win, we have to evaluate are we preparing young men for the world,” Smith said. “We want to positively influence these guys so that they’re better men having been a part of our program. That’s what I tried to tell them after the game was that they did nothing wrong, and sometimes things don’t go your way, but they fought their tails off and those guys competed.”
“We’re not going to cut down a high school athlete for playing bad, but we are going to demand a standard of effort and competitiveness always. Those guys did that and no matter what they can look themselves in the mirror and know they did everything they could and they kept competing,” he added. “I think the lesson outweighs the loss. If you keep competing and giving life everything you’ve got, regardless of the outcome, you’re going to be successful. So I hope our older guys take that with them into the next chapter of their lives and our young guys take that with them throughout their careers here with us.”
Even in defeat, or especially so, Smith said he was reminded, too, of how great it is to be a Golden Tiger, thanking the community for all the support during the season and throughout the playoffs.
“Walking around Friday after the loss, I think my biggest thought was how blessed I am to coach here in this community,” Smith said. “I think about how many of our fans traveled to Leeds and were just with us all year long…I’m extremely thankful for this community, our school, our school leaders, and our teachers. The teachers, man, they care about our players and they care about our success and they show up. They’re there for the players and for us coaches, too. So, I just want to say a thank you to all of Russellville for the opportunity to be a part of something so special as this community.”
Finally, looking at the 2024 season as a whole, even though the Golden Tigers didn’t advance as far as they would have liked, Smith believes it was a special season. The head coach has a high regard for the character shown by his players throughout the year.
“It was a season that I’m extremely proud of for multiple reasons, and not just making another quarterfinal appearance, but more so watching this team grow up and come together,” he said. “What was really special to me is that we had a lineup that rotated consistently throughout the year, and that’s not necessarily common in high school baseball.”
“It felt like our lineup changed like every two weeks and the thing that makes it so special is typically, in a high school setting with kids that are young and may not be as mature, you can deal with some selfishness, and I’ve been a part of teams where that’s the case,” Smith said.
“These guys never did that, they were never selfish, and I think that’s what I’m most proud of…I cherish the fact that these guys truly embodied that spirit that, you know, no one cares who gets the credit. I’ll do whatever it takes to help my team win today and they lived that out. You couldn’t tell who the every day starters were between the guys who were asked to serve in a different role. They all cared for each other and when their number was called they performed; when it wasn’t, they were all great teammates,” he added.
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