Russellville routs region rival East Limestone 49-14

The Russellville High School varsity football team bounced back from its first loss of the campaign with a dominant effort at East Limestone High School (0-5) on Friday night, routing their Class 5A Region 7 rival 49-14 to improve to 4-1 overall.

Russellville started the game fast and had the contest wrapped up by halftime.

After the Golden Tigers took the game’s opening kickoff, they needed less than a minute to score the contest’s first touchdown. Senior running back Tarus Davis, on a 49-yard run, scored his 12th rushing touchdown of the season to give the visitors a 7-0 advantage with 11:02 to go in the first quarter.

Just over three minutes later, Russellville struck again, this time through the air when senior quarterback Tripp Cleveland, who would finish with a career-high four touchdown passes in the game, found junior receiver Darron Jones wide open on a 53-yard post route. The Cleveland-to-Jones touchdown connection, their second of the season, made it a 14-0 game.

On the ensuing kickoff East Limestone gave the ball right back to Russellville when the semi-squibbed, knuckling kick took a big bounce off an Indian return man. The Golden Tiger recovery put them in fantastic field position; RHS took advantage a few players later with Cleveland dumping it off to Davis in the flats for a 17-yard touchdown.

Russellville took its 21-0 advantage into the second quarter.

The Golden Tigers scored 21 of their remaining 28 points in the 12 minutes before halftime. Cleveland threw his third touchdown pass of the night, a 32-yarder to junior Caleb Hawkins in the endzone, to make it 28-0 with about 10 minutes to go til the break; a 75-yard sack fumble scoop-and-score by linebacker Zade Hester put RHS up 35-0 at the 5:43 mark; and Cleveland capped the first-half scoring with a 10-yard TD toss to Gavin Willis with 1:16 left in the second quarter.

The final Russellville touchdown of the evening came late in the third quarter: Eli Harris secured the handoff from Cleveland and easily punched it into the endzone from two yards out. Harris’ first rushing touchdown of the season put the Golden Tigers up 49-0 with just under 16 minutes to play in regulation.

East Limestone would go on to score two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, but it was after Russellville has subbed off most of its starters.

Cleveland finished the contest 6-of-8 with 154 yards through the air while Davis, nearing the 1,000-yard rushing mark for the season, led RHS with 165 yards on the ground. Davis has rushed for over 135 yards in every game this campaign and is averaging 9.6 yards per carry.

The 49-14 victory most importantly improved Russellville’s region record to 2-1 in a playoff race that is sure to come down to the end.

The Golden Tigers will play their final non-region game of the regular season next Friday night, September 25, at Coosa Christian, the defending Class 2A champions now playing in the Private A classification. That game at Phillip Ellen Stadium in Gadsden is set to kickoff at 7 p.m.