Lee gets rude welcome to Class 5A, Region 8 in 61-16 loss to Russellville

By Staff
Scot Beard
Russellville's Brent Calloway showed Lee-Huntsville how to score touchdowns Friday night.
Calloway rushed for three touchdowns and returned a fumble for another score as the Golden Tigers (2-0, 1-0) routed Lee 61-16.
"It was great," Calloway said of his performance, which included 94 rushing yards. "I'm just happy I got to play this year."
Calloway opened the scoring with a 12-yard run with 8:29 remaining in the first quarter. Four plays later he scored again when the Russellville special teams unit pressured the Lee punter into fumbling. Calloway scooped up the ball and raced to the end zone.
The Russellville offense then began to sputter. Quarterback Joey Howe threw an interception on the next series.
Russellville forced a punt, but a penalty against the Golden Tigers pushed the ball back to the Lee 10-yard line. One the first play of the drive, Howe was sacked for a safety.
"The first two scores came a little too easy," Russellville coach Doug Goodwin said. "We lost focus on both sides of the ball."
Russellville was forced to punt on its next two series. Running back Scotty Freeman was able to end the scoreless slump with a 21-yard touchdown run to give the Golden Tigers a 20-2 lead at the half.
Calloway said Goodwin was not pleased with Russellville's performance in the first half.
"He told us we knew we should be playing like that. He said we should play every down like the score was 0-0," Calloway said. " He also told us we would practice at 8 a.m. (Saturday), so that was motivation."
The motivated team returned to the field and wasted little time in increasing the lead.
Howe found Mason Willis for an 8-yard touchdown pass with 9:05 remaining in the third quarter.
The Golden Tiger defense then shut Lee down and forced the Generals to punt from their own end zone. Russellville tipped the punt, which was downed on the Lee 10-yard line.
Calloway scored his second rushing touchdown of the night on a 10-yard run.
Lee fumbled on the first play of the ensuing possession and Russellville recovered on the Lee 25.
Howe hit Ryan Romans for a 25-yard touchdown pass to extend the Golden Tiger lead to 40-2. Russellville scored 20 points in the span of two minutes and three seconds.
"In the third quarter we came out well and executed well," Goodwin said.
Calloway scored his final touchdown of the night with 1:11 to play in the third on a 12-yard run.
The game then got ugly.
Lee fumbled the ball and Russellville's Jake Ward recovered.
On the next play, Russellville's Xavier Kirkman fumbled and Lee recovered. The next play, Lee's quarterback threw an interception to Ward, who retuned the ball 27 yards for a touchdown.
"I saw the quarterback rolling out so I got under his main receiver and he threw it at me," Ward said. "I caught the ball and took it to the house."
Ward's score put Russellville ahead 54-2 and Goodwin began to take his starters out of the game.
Lee scored on a 5-yard run to cut the lead to 54-9. Russellville fumbled on the next drive and Lee recovered the ball on the Golden Tiger 32. Lee scored on a 32-yard pass the next play.
Goodwin put his starters back in to slow the turnovers. Freeman and Calloway each had runs of more than 30 yards and Mario Roman scored on a 10-yard run to cap the scoring.
Russellville rolled up 222 rushing yards. Calloway accounted for 94 of those yards and 122 of them belonged to Freeman.
Howe completed eight passes for 105 yards and threw a pair of interceptions.
Like last week, the story of the game was the Russellville defense. The Golden Tigers held Lee to 97 yards of total offense.
"The defense is strong, I don't know what to say," Ward said. "The defensive line, nobody is getting past them and the linebackers are right there with them."
Russellville will travel to Butler Thursday.