Fans of Golden Tiger basketball no doubt walked out of the Russellville Middle School gym with a wide grin on their faces Friday night.
In the final Class 5A Area 15 contests of the regular season, the Russellville High School varsity girls’ basketball team routed its heated rival Lawrence County 77-34, setting a new season high for points scored and margin of victory. Meanwhile, the RHS varsity boys once again walked away victors over the Red Devils, defeating LCHS 66-59 to secure their 18th consecutive win over area competition—ninth straight against their foes from Moulton.
The varsity girls got the evening started and from tip-off it was Russellville’s night. In the first quarter alone the Lady Golden Tigers scored 35 points and led by 21; by halftime the hosts sat atop the scoreboard with 54 total points and led by 31.
Unfortunately for the visiting Lady Red Devils, winners of just one game this campaign, Russellville wasn’t quite done with them yet. The Lady Golden Tigers dropped another 20 on top of LCHS in the third quarter, allowing the Lady Red Devils just four points. Finally, with the rout secured—and the game clock, mercifully, running—Russellville tacked on three more points and called it a night, earning a season-best 43-point victory.
“Absolute all-out energy, effort, and a great defensive performance to do what we did,” was Russellville head coach Jermaine Groce’s evaluation of his team postgame.
“We did a good job of limiting their best player, making them struggle in the full court. Our defense led to a lot of transition opportunities,” he added in a postgame radio interview. “Just super proud of the standard our ladies have held to the last four games. I think this is the fourth game in a row—and I definitely can’t recall this happening—that we scored over 65 points a game, so it’s just a testament to their energy, their effort. Great job by them.”
Groce credits the recent success to his team’s pressing, which has really come along in the last few weeks. That’s helped the Lady Golden Tigers create turnovers and generate points.
“It’s finally clicked for our girls. We run two presses at the same time and our girls just now know when to do it, so they get into it a lot faster without any hesitation and without thinking,” he said. “They play with a lot more anticipation, gambling a little bit better, so it leads to more transition opportunities, more steals, more fast-breaks.”
The added incentive of earning the “Hard Hat Queen Award,” which the program highlights on its Facebook page, has thrown some fuel under the fire of the players, as well, Groce said.
“We’ve been pushing that Hard Hat Award now for about five games, and it’s kinda lined up exactly with our output, our energy, our effort,” he said. “We encourage our ladies to dive on the ground, encourage our ladies to get extra deflections. Laila Hill won our award tonight, not just by the point totals but she’s just a beast on the offensive glass. She’s definitely in there, and people don’t see it but she’s got sometimes three girls on her at the same time.
“Just the commitment to do the dirty work—dive on the ground, secure rebounds, get deflections that lead to steals, draw charges. That’s the difference is the commitment to that right there,” Groce added.
Of course in a game that saw the Lady Golden Tigers drop a season-high 77 points there were some offensive standouts. For the first time this season Russellville had two players score 20-plus points in a single game. Ella Copeland, with 23 points, and Angeleah Smith, who dropped a season-high 27 points, had performances to remember as they accounted for a majority of the team’s buckets.
“Tonight I think both of them combined for 50 points, so you know when you’ve got a guard that can get to the rim like Ella Copeland and then you’ve got another guard that can fill it up from the three-point line like Angeleah, it just makes it a long, tough night for anybody,” Groce said. “Angeleah, I give her credit because she’s fearless. She’s gonna shoot it. She gets her feet set so fast and she has the softest shot, so it always has the chance to go in.
“Ella is doing a great job right now…because she’s seeing the court a lot better here lately, and it’s opening up a lot of opportunities for all the things she can do,” he added. “When you’ve got someone like Laila (Hill) who can secure 20 rebounds in a game, you’ve got a three-point shooter like Angeleah that can space and score, and then you have an attacker like Ella that can get to the rim anytime she feels like it, it just makes it tough on the defense to stop all three of those at the same time.”
The win against Lawrence County on Friday night secured Russellville the two-seed in the area tournament. That means, for the first time in a long time, the Lady Golden Tigers will host an area tournament game. That means RHS will once again face the Lady Red Devils in the area semifinals next Friday, January 31. With the way the Lady Golden Tigers are playing right now, they can’t be blamed for feeling a little confident going into that game—and maybe further.
“If we can stay right here and continue to push this energy, this effort,” Groce said, “going into the playoffs…we could be a dangerous team.”
The Russellville–Lawrence County boys’ game tipped off to cap the evening, and it was exactly what fans have come to expect from the matchup over the last few years—which is to say it was hotly contested.
Just like the girls’ team, Russellville’s boys sent Lawrence County packing back down Highway 24, but the sendoff was a tad tougher.
After the opening eight minutes, Russellville had a relatively comfortable 11-point, 22-11 lead, but as they are wont to do, the Red Devils came back in the second quarter to make the hosts uneasy; Lawrence County cut the deficit before halftime to six and the Golden Tigers took a 34-28 lead into the break.
In the second half the visitors came all the way back and, after trailing by just three points after three, took the lead at one point in the fourth quarter.
That doubtlessly sent Russellville fans’ minds back to the first meeting between the two teams when the trailing Golden Tigers needed a last-second steal and go-ahead layup to make a comeback win in Moulton. Fortunately for the blood pressure of the many black and gold faithful packed into the bleachers, the usual Golden Tiger suspects didn’t allow it to get quite that nervy.
A couple of fast-break baskets and forced fouls saw Russellville retake the lead shortly thereafter, seal it late with a seven-point cushion, and complete the sweep of the area with a perfect 4-0 record.
“Even when (Lawrence County) made their runs, I knew we were gonna win the basketball game,” Russellville head coach Patrick Odom said in his postgame interview on WGOL 100.7 FM.
Odom added that the Red Devils’ surges in the game came at times when senior point guard Jah Williams, who found himself in foul trouble, was sitting on the bench.
“They made their best runs when we had number five (Williams) off the court,” he said. “He’s our motor. I said the other day on the radio EJ (King) is the best player around but Jah is so important to us. I knew we were just trying to get to a manageable time to get him back on the court with four fouls. Then when we got him back onto the floor you see what happens.
“There wasn’t any panic,” Odom added. “You know Lawrence County is gonna make some runs and it’s gonna be a tight game like that. We’re used to it. But I love the fact that our guys just continue to compete.
“We know we didn’t play our best tonight, but at the same time it’s nice to know that we can win these games with not our best and just continue to grind because here in a week it don’t matter what it looks like, you just gotta find a way to win.”
The RHS head coach, now in his 10th season at the helm of the program, admitted his team didn’t win with the exact style the Golden Tigers wanted, but they did win with toughness. In whatever way Russellville manages to beat opponents, there’s no doubt that they’re good at it. The victory over Lawrence County Friday marked the Golden Tigers’ 18th consecutive win against area opposition, including area tournament games. It’s a remarkable run that dates back to 2022, but nonetheless it’s difficult, Odom said.
“When you look at our roster, we’ve got two guys that have played in a billion of these (area games), right? They’re used to it. And I think our young guys have played enough high-caliber people; we’ve played a tough schedule,” he said.
“These games are hard. Our area is very good. People, I think, sometimes take for granted that you’ll just keep winning these games, but it’s hard. Winning’s hard and you’ve gotta earn it,” Odom added.
Russellville has three road games at Hamilton, Austin, and Desher before the close of the regular season and the beginning of the area tournament. It was decided before Friday’s game, but the Golden Tigers’ position in the area championship game is secure. It’s a position Odom and his Golden Tigers are grateful to be in.
“I’ve always coined the (area) semifinal night—it don’t matter if you’re the one-seed or whatever, it’s always the scariest night in high school basketball because I’ve seen so many crazy things happen. But we don’t have to do that; we’re sitting in the finals and we know we’re going to play state playoff basketball,” Odom said. “I think it allows us the freedom to go play in the championship game and know, one way or the other, we’re still playing in the state playoffs.”
Russellville, looking for a fifth-straight area tournament championship, will host the winner of the West Point and Lawrence County game in the Class 5A Area 15 title game on Tuesday, February 4.
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