RHS remains in playoff hunt

Russellville's Tyler Boyd (1) escapes the grasp of a Lee defender Friday night during the Golden Tigers' 24-7 victory. | Tim Alford for the FCT

Russellville first year head coach Michael Jackson told his team to approach Friday night’s Homecoming match-up with Lee-Huntsville as a playoff game.

Win and they had a chance to keep playing beyond the regular season.

The Golden Tigers were facing a must-win situation if they were going to keep any hopes alive of reaching the 5A playoffs for a twelfth straight year.

“Everybody played hard all night,” Jackson said, moments after the Golden Tigers wrapped up a 24-7 victory that ran their region record to 3-3 and moved them to 3-5 overall for the season.

“Our seniors have been through a lot and I couldn’t be any prouder.”

The Russellville offense made several changes during the course of the week and moved the ball efficiently at times Friday night.

Tyler Boyd put Russellville ahead with a four-yard touchdown run with 26 seconds remaining in the first half.

The Golden Tigers would later drive down the field and tack on a 36-yard Jose Betancourt field goal with 17 seconds to play in the first half to extend the lead to 10-0 at halftime.

“That was big going into the half,” Jackson said.

The Golden Tigers offense opened the second half with an impressive drive, capped off by a 9-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Devan Parker to wide receiver Wesley Bohannon. Betancourt’s PAT gave Russellville a 17-0 lead with 8:46 left in the third quarter.

Lee scored with just over eight minutes to go in the game to cut the Golden Tigers’ lead to 10, but that was as close as they would get.

Russellville added one more score when Boyd broke loose for a 34-yard touchdown run with 1:37 left to play.

The defense played well all night, making several stops on fourth down conversion attempts and racking up more than a half dozen sacks.

“We finally got off to a good start and our defense was able to play with the lead,” Jackson said.

“Lee has played everybody tough all year and we wanted to come out and get off to a good start and we did that.”

Russellville travels to Columbia next week for a Thursday night game. It will be the final region game of the season and the Golden Tigers need a win to keep playoff hopes alive.