Young RHS softball team improves to 7-4 after win over East Limestone

The Russellville High School varsity softball team recorded a 7-1 home victory over East Limestone on Monday, March 4. The result marks Russellville’s second win over the Indians this season, and it pushes the Golden Tigers’ winning streak to three games.

The Golden Tigers doubled up the visitors on hits and put up crooked numbers in the second and fifth innings to cruise to their fifth win in the last six games. Ticelee Gholston and Jemma Moore led the team offensively, both with two hits and an RBI, but the best performance of the evening came from Russellville’s ace, Jacey Moore. Moore fanned a season-high 15 batters through seven innings, surrendering just one unearned run on four hits and a walk.

“Anytime Jacey is in the circle she gives us a chance because she’s going to throw strikes,” Russellville head coach Rick Lawson said. “It helps us when she’s there, she spins it really well and she’ll get a couple strikeouts on her own.”

“We are a young team, but we’ll make great plays in behind her so that relaxes Jacey out there to be the young lady she has to be inside the circle. I’m really proud of all of them,” Lawson added.

Russellville opened the scoring with two runs in the bottom of the second inning when a hard-hit ground ball by Khristyan Huerta forced an East Limestone error and allowed Lexie Wells and Jemma Moore to score. The latter then scored Russellville’s lone run in the fourth off a Jacey Moore double. The Golden Tigers tacked on three more runs in the next inning thanks to an RBI single from Brooklyn Butler, a ground out that scored Addison Holcomb, and a sacrifice fly by Bryleigh Butler. For good measure, Ticelee Gholston knocked Paislee James in with an RBI double in the bottom half of the sixth.

Russellville’s performance at the plate against East Limestone was no fluke. Hitting, especially hitting with runners on, has been the Golden Tigers’ greatest strength this season, according to Lawson, and it showed again on Monday night.

“We’ve had some great, timely hitting,” he said. “When we get runners in scoring position, we usually find a way to scratch them across.”

The win over the Indians improves Russellville’s record to 7-4 in the 2024 campaign. After seeing split results in a four-game tournament hosted by Hillcrest to start off the season, the Golden Tigers have gone 5-2 and outscored opponents 31-18. Lawson, in his first season as head coach, said Russellville’s record represents a young squad playing well against tough competition up to this point in the season.

“You know, we’ve played some really great teams. Our four losses have come from Hillcrest, 7A powerhouse Thompson, Kossuth in Mississippi, which is probably going to be the 3A state champion there, and then we got beat by a very good Hatton team in the last inning,” Lawson said. “We’ve got some senior leadership, but we’ve also got a very, very young team. The level of competition we played against and had success against is giving (the players) reasons to be excited, giving them reasons to play with a little enthusiasm behind them.”

When Lawson said he has a “very, very young team,” it’s no exaggeration.

“We’ve got four seniors to take the field for us. Everybody else is 10th grade and below. In fact, (we have) only one 10th grader, everybody else is a ninth grader and below,” he said.

The makeup of this Golden Tiger squad then makes for an interesting dynamic, but Lawson said Russellville’s cadre of experienced varsity playmakers have mixed well with the bundle of youth as everybody has been accepting of their role.

“I’ve got four great (seniors)—I can’t emphasize that enough—but I told them I would hold them to a higher standard than anybody has probably ever held them before. I need my seniors to be the leaders on the team, and the ‘senior-itis’ situation where seniors don’t have to work, is not relevant to this team right here. They’ve bought into it 100 percent,” Lawson said. “A great example is tonight (against East Limestone) we made an error out there in the field…and before I could even get out there my seniors had already started addressing it. They’ve accepted their roles and the younger players have accepted that, as well.”

“To be able to sit there and take, not necessarily criticism, but advice from their senior leadership and not be offended or upset by it, that’s maturing us and that’s going to help us moving forward in the years to come down the road.”

Russellville travels to Central for its next game on Tuesday, March 5.