The Russellville High School varsity girls’ and boys’ soccer teams celebrated Senior Night at home on Tuesday night, picking up dominant wins over area rival Lawrence County. The Lady Golden Tigers shutout the Lady Red Devils 5-0 while the RHS boys defeated LCHS 5-1.
The girls’ game got the evening started at Golden Tiger Stadium as a brace and two assists from senior Esmeralda Baltazar and a clean sheet from junior goalkeeper Lya Ramirez led the Lady Tigers to victory over their visiting area foes.
Russellville took a 3-0 lead into the halftime break, and then tacked on two more goals in the second half to beat Lawrence County for the second time this season. Besides Baltazar, Russellville’s other goal scorers were senior captain Dianet Felix Cota, junior Fatima Ramirez, and junior Kimberly Mojica, who bagged one goal apiece.
First-year Russellville varsity girls’ team head coach Casey Guynn said the key to the Lady Tigers’ success against LCHS—and a part of their game they have consistently improved upon this season—was their passing quality.
“We’ve focused a lot in practice on getting on the wings and passing to the middle to set up for a goal,” she said. “That worked so well for us tonight that I heard Lawrence County’s coach yelling, ‘They’re going to pass to the middle, they’re going to pass to the middle.’ So that was like an aha moment for me because I was like, it’s working, they’re doing it, they’re getting it done together.”
The win improved Russellville’s area record to 2-1 this campaign and clinched the Lady Tigers a berth in the postseason.
Despite putting five goals past the Lady Red Devils, Guynn stressed a major focus of her team will be to keep finding the back of the net consistently, especially against area leader Priceville and as the squad nears the playoffs.
“We scored five goals tonight, but we’ve gotta score more against Priceville,” she said. “We didn’t score any against Priceville last time we played them.
“If we’re not scoring, we’re not winning,” Guynn added. “I’d say that would definitely be our focus: score, score, score.”
Following the conclusion of the match, the Lady Golden Tigers honored their five seniors: Emeralda Baltazar, Dianet Felix Cota, Melanie Figueroa Ramirez, Emily Martinez, and Jessenia Mateo.
Although Guynn has had just one season with this group of senior players, the coach said she was impressed with their attitude and leadership ability.
“This group of seniors, their attitudes are amazing and their attitude has been about helping the younger girls and passing the torch off to the juniors to make sure the program is strong,” she said. “They knew from their previous experience of being juniors and sophomores that they needed to teach the younger ones about how to lead the program.
“I’m amazed at them, amazed at their attitudes. They’re sweet girls, and they’ll definitely be missed, but I know they’re gonna do big things,” Guynn added. “I’m thankful to be here, thankful to be their coach, and very proud of all my girls.”
The Russellville boys’ team’s seniors were also recognized in between the two matches Tuesday night. The varsity boys’ team had eight seniors honored: Cristian Figueroa, Junior Figueroa, Christopher Mojica Flores, Ricardo Gutierrez, Manny Martinez, Brayan Perez, Cesar Ponce, and Freddy Quesada Luna.
RHS head coach Trey Stanford said his group of seniors this season have been around the block with the program and have helped carry and maintain the standard.
“Most of these guys have been here and playing four, five, six years,” Stanford said. “Fortunately for us, there has always been a lot of talent here, and these guys are super talented. They’ve been vital to our program and helping us do what we want to do here.
“It always hurts when you lose eight seniors and a lot of starters, so we’re gonna miss them. But I’m excited about the future with the young guys playing now and coming up behind them,” Stanford added.
One of the younger players made an impression early and often in Russellville’s 5-1 victory. That was sophomore German Perez, who collected a hat trick with two goals in the first half and a belter of a goal in the second half that highlighted his speed and finishing ability.
“He’s a really good, a really great player,” Stanford said of Perez. “He can play anywhere. We’ve put him at center back, he’s been center mid(fielder), we’ve put him in as a striker—anywhere you put him he can play it.”
Perez’s first goal came early in the match in the fourth minute. It was followed up about 10 minutes later with a Manny Martinez penalty kick to make it 2-0.
After being given a foul in the box in the 15th minute, Martinez, a senior captain, put the penalty away smoothly, beating the LCHS keeper with a cool finish into the bottom right corner of the goal.
Lawrence County pulled one back in the 22nd minute when a Red Devil attacker caught the goalie out of position and put the ball in over the top of his head.
“Lawrence County is talented. They’ve got six or seven kids that can absolutely play, and they gave us all we wanted at their place a couple weeks ago,” Stanford said. “That goal was a mistake on our keeper’s part, but we talked about it at halftime and he was just as upset about it as we were. That’s one you just move on from.”
Their advantage being halved against the run of play didn’t seem to affect the Golden Tigers. Russellvilled recouped its two-goal lead 10 minutes later in the 32nd minute when Perez grabbed the brace, and that took the hosts into the intermission up 3-1.
A little over 20 minutes after halftime, the Golden Tigers went up 4-1 when German Perez scored his third goal of the game. After showing off his speed to race past the last defender, Perez latched on to a long ball launched in over the top, used a step-over to create separation, and then smashed the ball past the goalkeeper, beating him with his shot to the far post.
Three minutes later, the scoring was capped with a goal by Angel Zatavan, who’s shot took a deflection to wind up in the net and make it 5-1.
Stanford was pleased with the win but added that there are still areas his team need to improve in if they want to achieve their ultimate goal this season.
“5-1 is a lot better than the 3-1 score the last time we played them,” he said. “We’ve still got to get better with our possession, though, if we want to do anything or go deeper in the playoffs.”
The win against Lawrence County improves Russellville’s record to 6-5-2 overall. That record may look less than stellar to those familiar with the Golden Tigers past success and previous double-digit win campaigns, but Stanford said the record doesn’t reflect the ability of this team. Injuries have been one of the consistent issues faced by RHS and it’s affected the chemistry on the pitch.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Stanford said. “It’s the first time I’ve had it happen to me where it seems like there were two or three weeks there where it was injury after injury almost every day.
“We’ve got to find that group of 11 players that meshes and plays together well, and injuries have not helped us at all. They’ve really, really hurt us when it comes to learning to play together and meshing together,” he added.
Russellville’s record is also a reflection of the caliber of competition the Golden Tigers have faced this year—a consequence of facing some of the top teams across the state regardless of classification.
“There’s not gonna be any of the 5A teams we might face (in the playoffs) that are gonna be on the level of Florence or Grissom or some of the other teams we’ve seen,” Stanford said. “Record-wise it’s been a tough season, but I don’t feel like that reflects how good our team is because we’ve just played some really talented teams, some really big and talented 7A schools. One of the teams we played right out of the gate this season was a Georgia team, a very big private school, that’s 14-0 or 14-1 and won a state championship last year.
“We’ve played a lot of these teams with injuries, so we’ve had to play some young kids, but even so we’ve competed well,” he added.
Though Russellville’s record may have written them off in the minds of some, Stanford is optimistic that this team can still achieve that elusive goal of capturing a blue map.
“We have a lot of talent on our team, and at any moment when we’re playing well, we can play with anybody,” he said. “We’ve got a couple injuries right now, we’re a little banged up, but if we can get some of these guys back in the next two weeks before we start in the playoffs then I think we’ve got a good shot. We’re talented and we can make a serious run if not go all the way.
“Just from looking at everybody else, I think we’re as good as anybody in 5A when we play like we’re capable.”
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