Russellville Golden Tigers start football region play with victory over Lawrence County
PHOTO BY BRANNON KING - The Russellville defense, led by Keifer Hallmark (28), makes a stop.
PHOTO BY BRANNON KING - Russellville’s Cam Phinizee celebrates his first touchdown of the game during a win over Lawrence County.
PHOTO BY BRANNON KING - Quarterback Whit Goodwin is ready to throw the football for the Golden Tigers.
PHOTO BY BRANNON KING - Neyland Baker (60) and the RHS offensive line takes on the defense of the Red Devils.
PHOTO BY BRANNON KING - Russellville’s Keifer Hallmark is in action on defense versus LCHS.
RHS has now defeated Lawrence County seven-straight years on the gridiron and with the win, the Golden Tigers improved their record to 2-1 on the season.
Russellville got five rushing touchdowns from Cam Phinizee on offense, and Keifer Hallmark intercepted two Lawrence County passes and recovered a fumble by the Red Devils to help lead the defense.
“We came out and did some really good things tonight,” Russellville head coach Dustin Goodwin said. “We were able to run the ball and throw it pretty well. I think we stayed pretty balanced for the most part until we felt like we needed to bleed some clock. I’m really proud of our effort. We still had some penalties that we’ve got to get cleaned up. We had some personal foul penalties and some false start penalties that definitely need to be cleaned-up as we go forward.”
Lawrence County had the ball first and missed a 26-yard field goal attempt. The opening RHS drive of the game went 80 yards and was capped by an eight-yard Phinizee touchdown. Manny Martinez was good on the first of his six extra-point kicks on the night to put the Golden Tigers up 7-0 with 5:40 left in the first quarter.
The next LCHS drive was stopped when Hallmark recovered a Red Devils’ fumble. Russellville needed only five plays to grow the lead to 14-0 with the help of a 30-yard Phinizee touchdown run near the end of the first quarter. The same formula worked for RHS on the next two possessions as Hallmark created another Lawrence County turnover and Phinizee made the Devils pay with a 12-yard touchdown carry to make the score 21-0 halfway through the second quarter.
A four-yard touchdown run by the quarterback got Lawrence County onto the scoreboard on the next drive, but the extra-point attempt failed as Jah Williams of the Golden Tigers stopped the ball carrier on a two-point try. The next RHS drive was long but came to an end on a fourth-down play. Hallmark helped keep the Red Devils from scoring just before the half with his second interception of the contest.
A 12-play Russellville scoring drive started the second half as Phinizee added a 10-yard touchdown run to his total. Lawrence County made the score 28-13 with a fourth-down touchdown pass of five yards with 2:45 remaining in the third period.
The Golden Tigers answered quickly with a gain on first down by Gunner Sappington, a completion from Whit Goodwin to Ty Willis and then a 72-yard touchdown run by Phinizee. LCHS added a touchdown on a 10-yard pass with 7:46 to go in the game to make the score 35-20.
The Russellville victory was sealed by a Zay Hubbard interception of a Lawrence County pass, an eight-yard touchdown run by quarterback Tripp Cleveland and a sack by Hallmark near the end of the game.
Next for RHS will be a trip to East Limestone Sept. 13 for another region contest as the Golden Tigers battle the Indians.
