RHS girls’ basketball team starts area play 1-1 after loss to West Point, win over Lawrence County

After suffering a blowout defeat at the hands of the No. 5-ranked West Point Lady Warriors to open Class 5A Area 15 play, the Russellville High School varsity girls’ basketball team went on the road and defeated Lawrence County to start area play 1-1 this week.

On January 7th, the Lady Golden Tigers were routed at home 66-29 to open the 2025 calendar year before two days later, on January 9th, getting back to .500 in the area with a 10-point road victory in Moulton.

Hosting the Lady Warriors at the Russellville Middle School gymnasium, Russellville trailed the entire game but the visitors really turned up the heat in the second half. Struggling to work around West Point’s aggressive defense and hit shots in the final 16 minutes, Russellville was pushed into a deeper and deeper hole, eventually falling by a 37-point margin.

“West Point is a really physical team,” Russellville head coach Jermaine Groce said. “They’re going to pressure you, they’re going to aggressively try to trap you, they’re going to slap down at the ball, and they’re just going to force you into some things that you’re not going to like. It’s going to be an uncomfortable game unless you can embrace pressure.”

Russellville’s inability to cope with West Point’s pressure and aggressiveness, Groce said, was the biggest letdown for him, especially after he felt his team did a good job of it in the games leading up to the WPHS contest.

“(West Point) did a great job of adjusting their pressure package and did some things that made us uncomfortable,” he said.

The RHS head coach said he felt his team played well defensively in the first half—the Lady Golden Tigers trailed 27-14 at the halftime break—but the shots were just not falling for Russellville.

“Our girls thrive, everybody thrives off each other,” Groce said. “When you make shots, you play a lot better; you play faster and you play a lot more energetic. But when everything’s not falling and everything’s tough, it drags you down.”

In the second half, after the Lady Warriors jumped on the hosts right out of the break, the wheels started to come off and the Lady Golden Tigers’ offensive woes got even worse. RHS managed to score just three points in the fourth period.

“We went into halftime down 13 (points), which, outside of the turnovers in transition, I felt like was a really good job of us,” Groce said. “You come out in the second half, try to make some shots and get things going, but (West Point) came out and hit some shots really quick and then it just forced us to have to try to pressure them.

“West Point does a great job versus man pressure, and it makes everything really tough from there when you’re trying to play catch-up,” he added. 

Groce said he hoped the West Point defeat would serve as another learning opportunity for a really young Russellville squad.

“You know, the only person that has a whole lot of varsity experience is Ella (Copeland), followed by Laila (Hill), our junior,” he said. “There’s some things that happened well in the first half, some things that happened well in the second half, and we’ve just gotta figure out how to blend all of that together the second time we play them.

“You just gotta learn what you can learn from it and put it away,” Groce added.

Sophomore Ella Copeland led the Lady Golden Tigers with 13 points in the loss and Angeleah Smith scored eight points.

Russellville’s fortunes were reversed for the better in its next game two days later at Lawrence County. The Lady Golden Tigers led for most of the game against the Lady Red Devils, who came into the matchup with a 1-14 record, and ultimately left with a 10-point margin of victory.

“Any time you can come to Lawrence County and pick up an area win, it’s great,” Groce said in a postgame radio interview. “It’s big because it’s hard to come down here, it’s always a tough ballgame. It’s probably our biggest rivalry, so it’s special for us to be able to pull off the win.”

In a hostile environment, the game was not without its challenges for the Lady Golden Tigers. Leading 26-19 at halftime, RHS overcame second-half foul trouble as well as a 15-8 run by the Lady Red Devils in the third quarter that pulled the hosts within four points heading into the fourth. Unlike in the West Point game, however, Russellville was able to sink its shots and press LCHS effectively in the final eight minutes, and that made all the difference in the outcome.

“We decided to bring a lot of pressure. We encouraged the girls to try to be more aggressive, to foul more, and they took it to heart,” Groce added. “We had at least four or five (in foul trouble) at the end of the game. But the girls played a lot harder in the second half, and we were able to keep them off balance enough to pull out the victory.”

Smith, who led the Lady Golden Tigers with a personal season-high 23 total points, really came alive in the final period of play, showing off her range from beyond the arch and helping push Russellville over the finish line. With Lawrence County keying in on Copeland, who finished with 17 points, it left Smith with plenty of open opportunities to hit shots from deep.

“Lawrence County did a good job of blitzing Ella Copeland, but we did a good job of turning the ball and finding Angeleah in the corner, and she made them pay,” Groce said. “If you’re going to keep trying to trap, it’s great to have somebody that can knock down the three-point shot right there in the corner. She kept knocking them down—one of her best shooting nights of the year.”

RHS ended up scoring 21 points in the fourth quarter, six more than Lawrence County, to give the visitors the 59-49 win.

After the West Point game, Groce said getting a victory against Lawrence County would be critical for postseason positioning. The Lady Golden Tigers got the result they were looking for and will look to press their advantage when they host Lawrence County on January 24th.

“If you can go in and beat Lawrence County, now we’re in position to be the two-seed going into the area tournament,” he said. “We can go in and beat Lawrence County and then beat them again the second time, we get to host that two-three (seed) game here (at home), then that would be great for us to hopefully advance to play West Point and see what we can do from there.”