Golden Tigers fall 28-12 in regular season finale at Athens

The Russellville High School varsity football team (6-4) capped its regular season on the road at Class 6A Athens (6-4) on Friday night, falling to the hosts by a final score of 28-12.

The loss was the first for the Golden Tigers since losing to Class 5A Region 7 champion and No. 4-ranked Fairview on October 3. It was also the Golden Tigers’ first loss to a team that wasn’t undefeated going into week 10.

“Knowing (Athens) is a 6A playoff team, you know coming into it that they’re good, they’re coached very well, and you know they’re going to play hard—and they did,” Russellville head coach Dustin Goodwin said after the game. “I don’t think we played the cleanest game we possibly could’ve, by any means, but I do think our kids played hard.”

After an RHS punt to start the contest, the hosts opened the scoring on a 50-yard touchdown run on a quarterback keeper to make it 7-0, Athens, with 4:24 to go in the first quarter.

Despite throwing two interceptions in the first half—one in the first quarter and another in the second—the Golden Tigers were able to keep Athens out of the endzone again until the Russellville offense scored itself with 2:48 remaining in the half.

A Patrick Johnson interception—his first of the campaign—set the Golden Tigers up in excellent field position ahead of the touchdown. Then, on the first play from scrimmage, sophomore quarterback Whit Goodwin rushed 28 yards for the score, his 25th total touchdown this year.

That made it 7-6, Athens, after Russellville’s extra point was blocked.

Right before halftime there was a bit of controversy surrounding the clock and the officials’ management of it.

Athens got the ball back after the Golden Tiger TD and marched down the field to try to re-extend its lead. The Golden Eagles reached the redzone but, inside the RHS 10-yard line, were stopped on second and third down with less than 10 seconds remaining. 

The hosts recouped a couple seconds from the refs after the second down play; then, after an Athens wide receiver was tackled inbounds at the one-yard line with less than two seconds to go on the game clock, neither the line judge nor the side judge on Russellville’s sideline (nearest where the Athens player was tackled) signaled for the clock to stop before game clock hit triple zeros.

Still, after the entire Russellville bench ran to the locker room believing the half to be over, the referees, after a discussion, decided to allow Athens the use of its final timeout and put one second back on the board.

The Golden Eagles made good use of the timeout and ran it in from a yard out as time expired to take a 14-6 advantage into the break.

“The two first-half turnovers were shots in the foot and didn’t help us at all,” Goodwin said. “There were issues with the clock and I didn’t really like the way that was managed going into halftime, so (Athens) got an extra play and ended up scoring from the one. It very easily could’ve been a 7-6 game (at halftime).

“We had an extra point blocked but that can’t happen either,” he added.

In the second half the Golden Eagles leaned on their speed and depth to add to their lead over the Golden Tigers.

Athens scored early in the third quarter after receiving the second half kickoff, reaching the endzone on a 42-yard touchdown run to make it 21-6.

The hosts then added an early fourth-quarter score to make it 28-6.

Russellville capped the scoring in the dying minutes of the game on a nine-yard touchdown pass from Goodwin to junior Keifer Hallmark. After the failed two-point conversion, Russellville trailed 28-12, and that is how the affair ended.

“I thought our defense played really hard and did a solid job for most of the night. We just got a little worn down and gave up those two touchdowns in the second half,” Goodwin said.

“It’s better to figure out some of these things this week against a quality opponent as opposed to doing it next week and being out of the playoffs in round one,” he added. 

Goodwin said the Golden Tigers will look to use this game against a playoff-bound Athens team as a learning opportunity heading into the opening round of the playoffs against Boaz next Friday.

“We’ll go back and study the film, look to build off everything we did good and try to fix the mistakes,” he said. “We’re fortunately able to do that.

“This game can only help us,” he added. “These guys will stay together, keep fighting for each other, and keep looking to get better. They don’t want their season to end, so they’ll put their best foot forward and try to fix these mistakes and put all of our eggs in the basket for the playoff game.”

Russellville will host Boaz at Golden Tiger Stadium on Friday, November 7.