Russellville baseball snaps early losing spell with three straight wins

After a three-game losing spell, the Russellville High School varsity baseball team turned it around last week with three wins in three games, improving the Golden Tigers record to 5-5 overall this season.

The Golden Tigers have been swinging the bats over the last couple weeks but were hurt by errors and free bases during their losing streak. Over the last three games, Russellville continued hitting well and played more mistake-free baseball as it secured wins over Austin, Mars Hill, and North Jackson.

“I thought our guys did a good job of responding this week,” Russellville head coach Jess Smith said. “I think I said (in the losses) we were making mistakes we couldn’t outhit. I think we did a better job playing cleaner baseball this week.”

Russellville opened the week on the road at Austin on Feb. 27, defeating the Black Bears 8-1. Errors had plagued the Golden Tigers up to that point, but they looked almost cured of it against the Black Bears.

“Tuesday was the first time it felt like we played pretty error-free baseball this season,” Smith said.

In fact, it was Russellville’s second errorless game, the first coming in the 10-0 home rout of Austin earlier this season.

The Golden Tigers also didn’t give up free bases, another area of improvement Smith has stressed this year. Starting pitcher Brandt Cummings had just one walk in his five scoreless innings pitched and allowed just three hits while striking out seven batters. Ty Engelthaler finished out the final two innings, allowing a run on two hits with three strikeouts.

Four Golden Tigers had multi-hit performances as Russellville put up crooked numbers in the second and fifth inning versus Austin. Cayden Johns and Devin Green both came around twice to score while Daniel Askew led the team with two RBI.

The wins kept coming over the weekend when Russellville hosted Mars Hill and North Jackson in a doubleheader March 2. In the first game against the Panthers, the Golden Tigers were again led by a strong effort on the mound, this one from Johns, as the hosts beat Mars Hill 3-1.

“Cayden Johns pitched outstanding for us on Saturday,” Smith said. “He was scoreless through six innings against Mars Hill and I think he had just a couple walks.”

Johns didn’t have a ton of strikeouts in his six shutout innings but allowed his defense to go to work behind him.

“We had some plays where our defense really came up big,” Smith said of Russellville’s weekend. “We had some tough defensive plays and turned some double plays that kept us in those games.”

Johns was relieved in the seventh by Gunner Sappington and Ty Engelthaler, who picked up his first save of the season.

Offensively, Russellville scored all three of its runs in the third. A defensive error put KJ Murray on base to leadoff the inning. Murray would later come around to score on an RBI single by Askew. A couple errors and a couple passed balls brought in the other two runs scored by Askew and Tripp Cleveland.

Plenty of runs were scored in the final game of the week against North Jackson. Russellville, defeating the Chiefs 13-7, were led by Cummings who followed up his midweek win on the mound with a perfect 3-for-3 day at the dish. Cummings was just a triple shy of the cycle as he singled, doubled, and then capped off his day with a grand slam to right field in the fifth inning, his second grand slam of the season. He finished with four RBI and four runs scored.

“Brandt Cummings had a big week at the plate for us,” said Smith as he listed off the senior’s stats. “He’s been big for us this year both pitching and at the plate.”

Russellville finished the game with 11 hits and every starter contributed to the runs column with either a run scored or RBI or both. Alongside Cummings, Neyland Baker also had a three-hit game and scored three runs.

“You can tell when your offense is clicking when you score 24 runs this week and most of those were earned and weren’t given away,” Smith said. “I think the big thing is we’ve been having quality at-bats and we’ve been doing better with two strikes on us, not striking out as much, putting the ball in play and making the defense work for outs.”

The Golden Tigers went behind early in the top of the first inning but responded in the bottom half of the inning to tie it up 2-2. From there Russellville didn’t look back, scoring four runs in the third, two in the fourth, and five runs in the fifth. 

“Errors put us in a hole against North Jackson, but our defense responded and made some double plays and kept us in it,” Smith said. 

Russellville still isn’t perfect, Smith added, but just as his team has started to decrease their mistakes they’ve increased their ability to weather them.

“We still made some mistakes but we saw our guys play through those and overcome those mistakes,” Smith said, alluding to his previous comments about Russellville’s inability to “outhit” its errors. “That’s what you want to see. Can guys respond when something happens. I think our guys have been able to do that the last few games.”

Russellville’s three wins on the bounce are sure to be a boost to the team’s morale and confidence, but Smith said the Golden Tigers still have work to do to reach their peak as the schedule tilts closer to the most crucial of games.

“The goal going forward is to keep getting better and keep progressing as we get closer to area baseball,” he said.