Lady Golden Tigers rout rival Lawrence County, RHS boys suffer loss in area opener

The Russellville High School girls’ and boys’ varsity basketball teams saw mixed results in their first Class 5A Area 15 opener at home against Lawrence County on Friday night.

The Lady Golden Tigers controlled the visitors throughout the contest to walk away with a 69-41 win, but the opposite was the case for the RHS boys who fell behind early and could never recover, ultimately falling 76-42.

The evening began with a physical, stop-start girls’ game that saw over 40 total fouls called between the two teams. While the frequent whistle-blowing slowed the game down, it was evident fairly early that the Lady Red Devils would have a hard time slowing the Lady Golden Tigers. RHS ended up winning by 28-points, the team’s largest margin of victory since beating Hickory Flatt 74-25 back on November 8.

“We accomplished what we set out to do,” Russellville head coach Jermaine Groce said. “We got to use a pretty deep roster tonight, and I thought we played pretty well.

“We got double-digit scoring from four players—Sadie (Odom), Angeleah (Smith), Laila (Hill), and Ella (Copeland). So we were well balanced on offense, and I think we did a heck of a job defensively,” he added.

Up by nine points at the end of the first period, Russellville increased its lead to 14 early in the second after a steal and fast-break layup by junior guard Ella Copeland, who hit a free throw later on to give RHS a 15-point advantage, its largest of the first half.

At halftime, Russellville led Lawrence County by 12 points, 35-23.

In the second half the game was no less physical, but the Lady Golden Tigers continued to outpace the Lady Red Devils on the scoreboard. RHS outscored LCHS 17-7 in the third quarter and 16-11 in the fourth to win 69-41.

A couple of advantages for Russellville in the contest were its size and its depth. Groce told the Franklin Free Press earlier in the season that he planned to play a lot of players early in the season to prepare them for area games and important contests late in the season. Friday night, that bench experience paid dividends in a rough-and-tumble battle. A lot of players on both sides hit the floor, but it was Russellville’s depth, Groce said, that allowed his team to stay out of foul trouble and sustain its intensity throughout.

“They fouled, we fouled. A lot of bodies hit the ground, so it was definitely a tough game. They’re definitely going to feel it when they wake up tomorrow. But I think a lot of that was the rivalry and these girls knowing each other and both teams playing hard,” Groce said. 

“We probably played 13 girls tonight, but for the most part we played a 10-man rotation to help keep pressure on the ball and weather the storm through foul trouble. It allowed us to continue to attack the boards aggressively and match their aggression,” he added. “Lawrence County does a good job of playing with energy and effort. They’re diving after balls, they’re going to grab a lot of 50/50 balls, but having the depth allowed us to absorb a lot of that.”

Copeland led the Lady Golden Tigers in scoring in their final game before the Christmas break dropping 25 points. Averaging 24 points-per-game, Copeland has scored 20-plus points in all but one game to this point in the campaign. Sadie Odom supplemented the scoring with 13 points, and Laila Hill and Angeleah Smith added 11 and 10 points, respectively.

After Christmas the Lady Golden Tigers will face more tough competition in the interim before their next area game versus West Point in January. It’ll be a chance, Groce said, to make improvements and work on different schemes.

“Going through the Christmas break they’re going to be challenged again. I think we’ve got two ranked teams when we go to the West Morgan Tournament—we’ll play Wilson and Mars Hill, so it’s just more opportunities for us to try some different strategies that can possibly help us better prepare for West Point,” he said. “Everything right now is just preparation for the area tournament, trying to play teams and see what we can get better at.”

The Lady Golden Tigers improved to 8-5 overall with the win.

In Friday’s nightcap between the Russellville boys and Lawrence County, it was a rocky start for the Golden Tigers that didn’t get much better for the hosts as the night progressed.

The Red Devils took a 25-9 lead at the end of the first quarter, and while RHS fared a little better in the second, the visitors still managed to take a 40-23 advantage into the locker room at halftime.

“Our start just crippled us,” Russellville head coach Patrick Odom said. “I told (the team) that if it’d been a boxing match it was like we got a standing eight (count) and had starry eyes early in the game. It’s like we never really settled in and recovered after that.”

The punch drunk Golden Tigers continued to take jab after jab in the second half with the Red Devils’ reach extending beyond the three-point line. The visitors hit eight three-pointers in the final 16 minutes, scoring 24 of their final 36 points from beyond the arch. Lawrence County’s Jackson Smith, who finished with a game-high 27 points, hit five threes in the second half.

The Red Devils would go on to claim the area knockout, winning 76-42.

After the game, Odom said matter-of-factly that his team just didn’t play well and the result showed that. Consistency, the head coach said, is one of the key ingredients this Golden Tiger squad is missing right now.

“I feel like we’ve been playing better, but tonight we got in this moment and we just didn’t play well and didn’t deserve to win. We’ve got to keep staying together and keep fighting and getting better, but, you know, we just didn’t come out ready to play tonight,” Odom said.

“It’s pretty simple: we’ve got to play harder, we’ve got to defend better. If you defend better, offensively we’re going to be better. We just didn’t defend with a lot of urgency tonight, which is kind of where we were back a couple of weeks ago struggling offensively,” he added.

“We’ve got to grow up some. It’s still a long season, and I’ve been through this a lot where you look ugly in December, but we’ve got to find a way to be consistent.”

Sir Williams led Russellville in scoring with 16 points. Parker Odom added eight for the Golden Tigers in the loss. RHS dropped to 2-8 overall with the result.