Russellville's roller coaster season ends but Golden Tigers are loaded for another title run

By Staff
Kim West
FCT Sports Editor
BIRMINGHAM – Even though the Russellville boys went home with the Red Map trophy instead of the Blue Map, the team was still greeted by a large crowd of appreciative students, family and fans at their home gym late Friday night.
This season Russellville put together a school-record 32 consecutive wins and added a bevy of hardware to the gym trophy case. The Golden Tigers became one of four local teams to advance to the state semifinals or higher in the past nine months, joining the Russellville baseball and football teams and the Red Bay football team.
Russellville has traditionally been known as a football school, but the athletic program has championship-level expectations across the board, and this year's basketball team has upped the standard for future squads.
I believe the Golden Tigers are fully capable of facing Butler for the state championship again next season considering both coaches will be back patrolling the sidelines, and there's a bevy of playoff experience between them.
Russellville coach Michael Smith has three state rings from 15 seasons as coach of the Eufaula girls, who captured another 5A championship Friday, while Butler coach Jack Doss picked up his seventh title since 1981 – four as the boys coach for Hayes and three with the Rebels since 2004.
Russellville will have to replace its senior starting backcourt of point guard Siran Winston and shooting guards Jordan Hammond and Cory Trapp, plus reserve guard Yovanni Ramirez. Winston and Trapp both went over the 1,000-point milestone in their careers and have started for the Golden Tigers for the past four years.
Winston, who was named to the Final Four all-tournament team and regional tournament MVP, was the catalyst for Russellville's only perfect regular season in school history and first finals appearance since 2002 with 15.2 points, 6.6 assists, 4.8 rebounds and 3.0 steals per game.
Leading scorer Cory Trapp (15.7 ppg, 2.7 spg) was named tournament MVP in the TimesDaily Classic and WQSB Holiday Classic and finished as one of the most prolific 3-point shooters in state history. He is second all-time with 141 3-pointers made in a season and 391 in his career.
Hammond (9.0 ppg, 3.8 rbg, 2.0 spg) provided another scoring option to go along with steady defense. He had a career-high 32 points against Athens Jan. 23, which helped Russellville win its 20th straight game. He also finished tied with Smith for a team-high 38.2 percent shooting from 3-point range and second to Trapp with 69 treys this season.
But Final Four all-tournament selections Terence Smith and Jermaine Bates will be back in the frontcourt for Russellville this fall. Smith, a 6-3 sophomore forward who can also play point guard, and Jermaine Bates, a 6-3 junior forward with silky post moves and a sweet jump shot, will be joined by 6-9 junior center Nate Dunstan, who missed the first two months with a fractured wrist but averaged 9.0 points, 5.7 rebounds and 2.0 blocks in 16.9 minutes per game this season.
Juniors Tucker Hammock, Chase Johnson and Micah McCulloch and sophomores Mason Willis and Mark Davis will also be back, and they will be joined by some talented rising sophomores, including Brent Calloway, who had to sit out this season due to transfer rules, and Will Bostick, a high-scoring point guard.
Butler must replace senior point guard and Final Four MVP Ralph Eason but the Rebels will return their other four starters – junior Jermaireous Chandler, sophomore Ryan Ervin, freshman Trevor Lacey and eighth-grader Justin Pride – and every reserve player except senior guard Luther Johnson. Lacey and Ervin were also named to the Final Four all-tournament team.
For a game that meant so much to both schools, I was impressed at the level of sportsmanship displayed by all of the fans, coaches and players. There was a scary moment in the first half when Trapp and a Butler player dove for a loose ball and Trapp was inadvertently kicked in the head, but the entire crowd respectfully waited for the trainers to check him out and then help him walk off the floor. There was another time Trapp went up a for a loose ball in the second half, lost his balance and was quickly helped up by the two closest Rebels nearby.
I have never heard a player singled out for as much taunting as Trapp, who seemed to have a bulls-eye on his No. 10 jersey throughout the postseason thanks to his 3-point shooting ability. He not only received special attention from opposing teams' defenses but also their fans, but the razzing and negative chants seemed to dissipate at the Final Four.
It was also nice to see very little trash talking or showboating, and Russellville didn't slink off the floor when Butler accepted its Blue Map. Instead the Golden Tigers stood there and applauded the Rebels' efforts despite being emotionally drained from a roller coaster ride through the playoffs that included two wins over archrival Muscle Shoals, a loss to Wenonah that was ruled a win during the regional tournament thanks to an ineligibilty ruling against the Dragons and a semifinal victory over Eufaula, where Smith coached for 15 years prior to coming to Russellville in 2005.
Finally in the postgame press conference, both Smith and Doss made sure to acknowledge the other team's hard-fought play, and it was refreshing not to hear gripes about the officiating and to listen to them talk about how much they enjoyed being around their team.
I hope these Golden Tigers – only the fourth Russellville basketball squad to play in the Class 5A state finals – will look back on this season and realize it was a great success and not a failure just because the ending wasn't a storybook one. Their season was a journey of a lifetime, and that's something that can't be measured by trophies or statistics.
Kim West is sports editor for The Franklin County Times. She can be reached at kim.west@fct.wpengine.com or (256) 332-1881, ext. 30.