Golden Tigers' season will continue

By Staff
Jonathan Willis
The Russellville boys' basketball team will be playing again Saturday morning, three days after what seemed to be a season ending loss at the Northwest regional in Hanceville.
School officials were notified by the Alabama High School Athletic Association late yesterday that Wenonah High School, who beat Russellville 67-60 Wednesday in the regional finals at Wallace-State Hanceville, had been disqualified from the playoffs.
Wenonah was taken out of the playoffs because one of its players participated in basketball for seven seasons, four in high school and three in middle school, in violation of the Individual Participation Rule that limits a student to six seasons of participation in one sport after entering the seventh grade.
A student who officially participates in one contest of a sport is credited with one year of participation in that sport.
"Wenonah High School has been removed from the Northwest Regional Basketball Tournament because of an eligibility rule violation and replaced by Russellville High School," AHSAA Executive Director Steve Savarese announced Thursday.
The second-ranked Golden Tigers carried a perfect 29-0 record into the game Wednesday against the Dragons, but quickly fell behind and played catch up the rest of the way.
Russellville will play Muscle Shoals for the regional championship Saturday at 10:40 a.m. in Hanceville.
The Golden Tigers have beaten the Trojans four times this season, including the area championship game.
"What's going on is out of our control," Russellvile coach Michael Smith said Thursday, after hearing his team was still alive despite suffering its first loss of the season the day before. "But we can control how we prepare to play Saturday. I think we're thankful for this opportunity and all we can do is learn from our mistakes from (Wednesday). We've played Muscle Shoals before, but there's a little more at stake this time."
Muscle Shoals Coach Dennis Conner said he was notified yesterday shortly before practice began that his team needed to assume they would be facing the Golden Tigers.
"I guess it was about 1:30 (Thursday afternoon) they told us it was pretty likely we'd get Russellville," he said.
"We've played Russellville four times this year, so we're pretty familiar with what we're up against. You just practice as much as you can and we hope it turns out better than the last four times."
Wenonah has been fined $250, placed on probation for one year and will be required to forfeit all its victories in which the ineligible student has participated during the 2007-08 season.
The probation is a warning that other violations of this nature could bring further sanctions against the school.
State officials said the investigation into the allegations began shortly before the playoffs.