Golden Tigers start area play 2-0

The Russellville High School varsity boys’ basketball team jumped out to a perfect 2-0 start in the area and extended its winning streak against area opponents to 16 games last week after fierce battles against West Point and Lawrence County on January 7th and January 9th.

The Golden Tigers, hosting West Point at the Russellville Middle School gymnasium, initiated Class 5A Area 15 play with an 11-point victory over the Warriors last Tuesday. In a game that saw a handful of technical fouls—a side effect of the heated nature of the contest—Russellville eked by in a 76-65 win marking five straight victories against the Warriors.

Up by seven points, 40-33, at halftime, the Golden Tigers, led by a season-high 44 points from senior guard EJ King, needed cool heads and a steady second-half performance to keep the Warriors at bay and seal their first win of 2025.

“That’s (Class) 5A area basketball. It’s been this way for—this is my 10th season now,” Russellville head coach Patrick Odom said of the supercharged atmosphere during the game. “I tell our guys, we’ve gotta appreciate that everybody wants to beat us so bad.

“(West Point is) a really good team with a lot of weapons, but I thought we played really well,” he added. “I love the calmness of our guys. We just kept playing, you know? That wasn’t a perfect game for us, but I love how we played. The composure and things, when things were getting a little bit crazy, I thought we just held to what we’re supposed to do.”

The Golden Tigers, scoring 16 points in the third period, extended their advantage to nine points heading into the final eight minutes. A 20-point fourth quarter, highlighted by 12 points from King, finished the job as the hosts’ lead jumped to a conclusive 11 points.

Odom said he was pleased with how his players conducted themselves on the court, keeping their heads when emotions ran high. That discipline, in part, helped the Golden Tigers achieve the win, an important “first step” in the program’s race for a fifth-straight area crown.

“Our message to our guys all the time is just to go be us; go do what we do and trust the process of how we play. And I think we saw that,” Odom said. “We’ve gotta clean up a few things, but I guess the great thing is we’re not a finished product yet, and we don’t want to be that until the end of this month.

“Our guys—and (West Point’s) guys, too—you wanna play with an edge. You wanna play with an edge, but you’ve gotta know where the line is. It kinda turned into a chippy game, but we survived. We’re where we need to be to get ready for step number two,” Odom added. “It’s a great first step, and that’s really all it is: a first step. We gotta get ready for the next one.”

The next one, at Lawrence County in Moulton on the following Thursday, no one was quite ready for.

The Golden Tigers started slow against the Red Devils and as a result trailed for almost the entire game. Russellville went into the halftime break behind by 10 points, 38-28. After the intermission, Russellville ate into the deficit slightly, trailing by six points heading into the fourth quarter. But it was the final period of play when events really took a turn. 

In the final eight minutes, the Golden Tigers’ defensive effort—steals, blocked shots, and fast break points—brought the two teams within a basket of each other. Down 66-65 with less than 30 seconds remaining a questionable charge called on EJ King robbed RHS of a chance to take the lead or tie and—it seemed—consequently force RHS to foul to stay in striking range. But once again, the Golden Tiger defense came up huge. With 19 seconds remaining, RHS still down a point, a long inbounds pass by Lawrence County was intercepted by senior Rylan Pratt beyond halfcourt. Pratt quickly found his teammate Malachi Groce, who, in turn, found a wide-open Cam Phinizee—frantically waving for the ball—bolting into the paint. Phinizee, amidst the wild shouts from Golden Tiger fans, hit a floating, go-ahead layup—no backboard needed, thank you—with less than 10 seconds left.

“I felt like we should’ve been at the free throw line with a chance to take the lead just previously on a wild charge call, but we were gonna try to get it on the first pass,” Odom said in a postgame radio interview. “We were preparing for it—we weren’t surprised—but seeing it in the game is different.

“Really felt like with three minutes to go we were fixing to take control of the game and then, you know, craziness happens,” he added. “Of course, in the end, we decided to get out of here with a win, but it’s a testament to we know how to win.” 

Odom praised the fight and resiliency of his team from tip-off to final buzzer, as well as the players who stepped up during the game.

“Look back at the first half, just about everything that could go wrong went wrong, and I thought the second half—I told our guys, “look, there’s no 10-point plays. We’ve been here before. Let’s just keep chipping away, chip away,” Odom said.

“We’ve won a lot of these games and our guys absolutely refused to get beat tonight, even on the night where we could’ve probably made excuses that we did,” he added.

“I love our guys. Rylan is, you know, a guy that’s been playing every night but gosh; a couple big threes and still right there at the end. Just unbelievable. A senior stepping up in a big moment making a big play. You can go across the room of just the little plays that were made by guys. Sir Williams probably had the best game he’s played. And just the whole team—a great team effort to survive and we can get out of here and go play in the snow.”

At the end of the year, no one asks how a team wins but just asks that they do. Russellville’s 2-0 start to area play may not have been achieved through the prettiest performances, but the results leave the Golden Tigers in pole position with tournament time fast approaching.

“The game played out differently than we wanted it to play out…but, you know, when you go on the road, don’t matter how pretty it is, just gotta find a way,” Odom said. “We walk out of here 2-0 in a three-team area. We talked all week if we could win these two, we’re in the driver’s seat. It’s not done by any means but especially to come over here and win on the road was big.”