RHS volleyball splits with Covenant Christian, Belgreen on Senior Night

The Russellville High School varsity volleyball team saw split results against Covenant Christian and Belgreen on Tuesday night, pushing the Lady Golden Tigers’ record to 16-22 overall. Russellville fell 2-1 to the Lady Eagles before salvaging two sets and the win over the Lady Bulldogs.

Prior to the matches Russellville honored its two senior players, Kaylee Garner and Haylee Rikard, whom first-year head coach Madison Lamon said have been valuable leaders and positive influences for the team.

“They’ve been really good leaders, helping the younger girls out on the court, showing them where they need to be and just trying to be an encouragement to them,” Lamon said. “They’ve been uplifting to them.”

The first match of the night put a little bit of a damper on the senior celebrations with visitor Covenant Christian coming out on top. After taking the first set 25-21, the Lady Golden Tigers dropped the next two 25-20 and 15-13. Laila Hill and Blevyn Sappington led the team with eight and seven kills, respectively, while libero Bri McCullouch finished with 15 digs in the defeat.

Despite the disappointing result against the Lady Eagles, Russellville was able to turn it around against Belgreen in the final match of the night—even if it wasn’t always pretty.

Russellville and Belgreen battled back and forth throughout the first set with the score tied 10-10 at the first timeout, called by Lamon. After regrouping, the Lady Golden Tigers jumped out to a 17-15 advantage before the Lady Bulldogs called a timeout to try to rally themselves; however, Russellville was able to finish off the set with a 7-4 run to take it 25-19.

In the second set, the Lady Bulldogs came out swinging for it. The visitors jumped out to an 18-13 lead before Lamon decided to call her first timeout of that set.

“I just tried to tell them to take it one point at a time,” Lamon said. “When they get in a tough situation, try to calm the game down.”

The break had the desired effect. Russellville went on an 8-4 run that cut the deficit to 22-20 before Belgreen decided to call time. From there the two teams really battled it out: Russellville took the lead for the first time 24-23 and then promptly gave it back to Belgreen 25-24. The Lady Golden Tigers were, in the end though, able to pull it out, finally taking the necessary two-point advantage to win the set 27-25. Hill and Sappington both finished with eight kills, while Alexia Groce led with 11 assists.

Lamon, although not necessarily happy with the overall performance between the two matches Tuesday night, said the effort and resiliency Russellville showed against the Lady Bulldogs is something she’s seen her team display throughout the year.

“We’ve had a lot of fight when our backs have been against the wall,” she said. “We’re still focusing on finishing. We get right there, going into three sets and then we aren’t finishing. So, that’s something that we’re going to keep focusing on.”

One specific area Lamon said the Lady Golden Tigers need to hone in on, in regards to helping the team finish off matches, is their service. Russellville had 11 service errors between the two matches.

“We need to focus more on our serves, making sure we get those in,” she said.

Against Belgreen, Russellville also appeared to struggle, at times, with communication—multiple players going for the same ball or players watching as the ball hit in between them. Due to performance and rotation in some matches, Lamon said it can occasionally leave Russellville without a vocal presence on the court.

“I have some (players) that when they come off, I need others to step up and be leaders and be more vocal at times,” the head coach said. “So, like if our libero is off the court, we need to have somebody step up and say, ‘Hey, I’m here. Let me get the ball,’ and uplift other teammates, as well.

“Some days players have bad days, and when we have bad days I need somebody to step up and be that person to say, ‘Hey, I’m gonna be the leader today. I’m going to uplift my teammates and encourage them.’”

Tuesday’s matches were the last home events for Russellville. The Lady Golden Tigers will play in two tournaments—one at West Morgan and one in Gulf Shores—to finish off the regular season. In addition to working on Lamon’s discussed areas of emphasis, Russellville will give its younger players varsity action before the end of the campaign.

“I’m moving some players up from (junior varsity) that are going to help us out. I might throw them in the mix, as well, to see what works best for us,” Lamon said.

Russellville will travel to West Morgan for its next matches on Saturday, October 5th.