Golden Tigers suffer first region defeat, falling 35-28 on the road at No. 3 Fairview
The Russellville High School varsity football team dropped to 3-3 overall and 3-1 in Class 5A Region 7 play after being handed a 35-28 loss on the road at No. 3 Fairview on Friday night.
The two teams battled to a 14-14 halftime score before Fairview (6-0, 4-0) came out and dominated possession to start the second half. The hosts took a two touchdown lead into the fourth quarter, and that deficit ultimately proved too much for the Golden Tigers to overcome in the end.
“I’m proud of our kids,” Russellville head coach Dustin Goodwin told the Franklin Free Press after the game. “Probably not a lot of people thought the game would go this way and we’d have a chance to win. We’re not satisfied by losing by any means, but we are proud of our guys.”
The first half was a back-and-forth affair.
Russellville, taking the opening kickoff, drew first blood in the contest, scoring on the fourth play from scrimmage on a 56-yard touchdown pass from sophomore quarterback Whit Goodwin to junior Daniel Aycock. Less than a minute into the game, Goodwin found a wide open Aycock on a slant route over the middle of the field and Aycock won the race to the endzone to give the visitors an early 7-0 lead.
Fairview responded by scoring on its first offensive possession. On fourth down and medium, from the RHS 43-yard line, a halfback pass fooled the Russellville defense and the Aggies hit on a deep ball for the game-tying score with 7:53 to go in the first quarter.
That was one play that would come back to haunt the Golden Tigers. The next regret for Russellville came on its ensuing offensive possession: Driving 65 yards down the field RHS found itself with a first and goal from the Fairview one-yard line, but a holding penalty on first down and then two incompletions forced the Golden Tigers into a field goal attempt; senior kicker David Tomas’ kick from around 29 yards out went just wide right of the goalposts and Russellville came away with nothing.
“Unfortunately we felt like we had a 14-point swing in the first half. We had (Fairview) on fourth and long and gave them a cheap one on a trick play that we’d like to have back,” Goodwin said. “Then we had the ball on the one-yard line, had a holding penalty that backed us up and took us out of scoring (a touchdown) and missed a field goal there, so that’s potentially a 14 or 10 point swing that would have made a difference in the game.
“We talked about it today: The game’s gonna come down to three or four plays and hopefully we’d make them,” he added. “When it came down to those two or three plays we just didn’t make them.”
Both teams would add another touchdown before halftime. Fairview’s came on a short run to give the Aggies their first lead before the Golden Tigers tied it back up on a 28-yard touchdown pass from Goodwin to senior receiver Connor Devaney, his third receiving touchdown of the campaign.
In the first half both teams seemed content to take their time and shorten the game, but the third quarter is really when the hosts began to dominate the contest in time of possession.
Receiving the kickoff to start the second half Fairview proceeded to drain half the clock on a methodical march to the endzone and capped the drive with a three-yard touchdown rush by senior running back Jake Harper.
Down 21-14, Russellville’s first possession of the second half ended with a punt after three plays.
The Aggies—really milking the clock now—put together another long drive and took another handful of minutes off the clock before they scored again to make it 28-14 with 16 seconds left in the third quarter.
In the third quarter Fairview ran 21 plays to Russellville’s four and had possession for around 10 minutes.
Down by two touchdowns heading into the final 12 minutes, Russellville was forced to play catch-up for the duration. The Golden Tigers were able to pull back to within a score early in the fourth quarter when Goodwin found junior Sam Hamilton on a short five-yard touchdown pass to make it 28-21.
But just like in the third quarter, the Russellville defense was unable to get off the field when the Aggies got the ball back. Fairview continued to chip away at the RHS defense with Harper gaining three or four yards at a time, burning precious clock all the while.
Fairview scored its final touchdown on one of the few explosive plays Russellville allowed—a 42-yard run by Harper to make it 35-21 with 4:22 remaining.
The Golden Tiger offense, led by another 300-plus yard passing game from Goodwin, continued to fight and refused to give up, though. With 1:52 remaining, RHS pulled back within seven points once again when Goodwin hit Houston Askew on a 20-yard touchdown pass. Unfortunately Russellville’s onside kick attempt went awry and, after the Aggies were able to convert one final first down, simply ran out of time to make a full comeback.
“I was proud of our guys offensively for not giving up and giving us a chance to try to tie the game up (after) the onside kick,” Goodwin said.
“I think the margin of error in this game was pretty small for both teams,” he added. “Credit to Coach (George) Redding and his staff—they do a good job—and credit to them for making those plays.”
The region loss drops the Golden Tigers, for the time being, to third place in Class 5A Region 7 behind Fairview and Priceville, who beat West Point Friday night to remain perfect in area play. Both Russellville and Fairview have yet to face Priceville. So the bottom line for Russellville is there is still everything to play for this season; Goodwin and the Golden Tigers don’t intend to allow this one region defeat to keep them from attempting to reach their full potential.
“We’re going to fight to get better, and that’s not going to go away,” Goodwin said. “We still have a chance to be seeded in the playoffs and maybe even get home field advantage—it just depends on how the second half of the season goes. So we’ll lick our wounds tonight and get right back after it on Sunday.”
The Golden Tigers next game is a non-region road contest at Hatton on Friday, October 10.