Russellville losing streak against Mars Hill continues with 28-14 defeat

Sometimes a team just has an opponent’s number. The Russellville High School varsity football team, for the third year in-a-row, fell prey to the Mars Hill Bible School Panthers on Friday night, dropping the 28-14 as the Golden Tigers dropped to 0-3 all-time against the Class 3A private school.

Russellville (1-1), after defeating Deshler in come-from-behind fashion in its season opener, couldn’t repeat the feat against Mars Hill (2-0) in game two. The Golden Tigers were able to lean on a dominant running game against Deshler, but Mars Hill, if not able to stop him completely, focused on containing Russellville’s top offensive weapon. Junior running back Cameron Phinizee, who finished the game with around 150 yards rushing against the Panthers—still no number to sneeze at—was held to less than half his total production from the previous week.

“Credit to them for doing some of the things they were able to do to disrupt our run game,” first-year Russellville head coach Dustin Goodwin said. “They’re really good in the box and forced us to throw the ball some. Fortunately we were able to do that some but not well enough to open enough running lanes and score as many points as we’d like.”

The Golden Tigers, playing with two quarterbacks at the moment—freshman Whit Goodwin and sophomore Tripp Cleveland—have yet to create much of an aerial threat thus far this season. However, Russellville’s passing game hasn’t been totally impotent through two games; both Goodwin and Cleveland have one passing touchdown each to their credit.

Some of Russellville’s offensive woes against the Panthers Goodwin placed on himself.

“There were some calls I’d like to take back, but hindsight’s 20/20,” said Goodwin, who calls the offensive plays for the Golden Tigers. “That’s part of it. I’ll get better, too.”

Host Mars Hill got off to a brilliant start, scoring on its opening possession of the game, but Russellville didn’t back down. The Golden Tigers answered with a score of their own—a one-yard run by Phinizee—in the second quarter to tie it up, but the Panthers would retake the lead before the half with another touchdown.

In the second half, Russellville pushed into the red zone and tied it up again 14-14 after freshman quarterback Whit Goodwin, on a quick pass to the outside, found receiver Gunner Sappington, who ran it into the endzone from around 10 yards out.

However, Mars Hill retook the lead later in the third quarter to make it 21-14. The Golden Tigers had another chance to equalize, but a sack fumble by quarterback Goodwin late squashed the opportunity. The Panthers took advantage and scored on the ensuing possession to double their lead. The Russellville head coach again took part of the responsibility for the turnover.

“That was one of the things I made a mistake on,” he said. “I put our guys in a bad situation and they had the right defense called for what we tried to run and it didn’t work out for us. Unfortunately, that happens sometimes.”

Despite the loss, Goodwin said he felt his team—and Golden Tiger fans—gave it all they had on the road.

“I thought we played extremely hard, and that’s something we’ve seen a lot of,” he said. “I’m really proud of them for that and their great effort. They laid their body on the line, but unfortunately we didn’t do quite enough to make as many plays as the other side. We’ll work to get better at that.

“It was a great environment. The fans showed up and cheered us on well,” he added. “We just came up short, and we didn’t do everything we needed to do to be successful and win, myself included.”

Russellville opens up region play in its next game against Lawrence County next Friday.