Golden Tigers three-peat as area champs
By Brannon King for the FCT
The Russellville Golden Tigers claimed their third-straight area championship with a thrilling, come from behind win over the East Limestone Indians at RHS on Thursday.
With the score tied at 1-1 in the bottom of the seventh inning of the first game of a double header, Houston Kitterman hit a game-winning home run to make Russellville the Class 5A, Area 16 champions and with it comes the advantage of hosting the first-round of the playoffs.
Russellville trailed 1-0 in the first inning and found it hard to score off of East Limestone’s Austin Nichols until Cody Greenhill stepped to the plate and hit a home run to tie the score in the sixth inning. Chad Wray pitched all 7 innings for RHS and got the win. He allowed only 2 hits and struck out 6 East Limestone Indians.
“I’m proud of how those guys responded,” Russellville head coach, Chris Heaps said. “We always believe that we’re in the game and we don’t give up and we play all 7 innings and see what happens. We’re hosting the first round of playoffs and that was our primary goal.”
Russellville (25-8, 5-1) went on to win game two of the double header by a 14-4 score. The Golden Tigers will finish up regular season play with a couple of home games against Grissom and one against Hartselle before Mortimer Jordan comes to town for the playoffs on April 21.