Heaps and Co. bring home the title
Russellville teammates form a dog pile near the pitcher’s mound after winning the 5A state championship game against Helena.
Rain-outs and nerves did little to hamper the RHS baseball team’s destiny last week. In fact they were dominant from the beginning to the end of the 2015 5A baseball playoffs.
Just as morning was turning to afternoon on May 16, RHS defeated Helena 4-1 behind a solid pitching effort by one of only two seniors on the team, Jacob Green.
After a 3-2 win on May 15–beating out two days of rain–the Golden Tigers met Helena with a 10 a.m. first pitch at Riverwalk Stadium in Montgomery, Ala. on Saturday.
The Golden Tigers finished Friday night’s win behind Cody Greenhill’s solid performance on the way to the 3-2 win. Saturday’s game saw RHS senior and Shelton State signee, Jacob Green, take the mound. Green was solid again for the Golden Tigers going seven innings and only surrendering one run as Russellville closed out the championship series on Saturday morning.
Russellville took control of the deciding game of the series in the second inning when Austin Bohannon doubled and tallied an RBI. Two more singles–three hits in a row–and the Golden Tigers had trotted out to a commanding 3-0 lead. Little did they know that would be all they needed.
Green kept dealing from the mound and kept the Helena bats quiet.
A rally by the Huskies in the sixth inning was quelled after a double play was turned by the middle infielders followed by Green’s eighth strikeout of the day to end the frame.
The first ever state championship for Russellville baseball came just days after the golf team won the 2015 5A state championship.
The RHS baseball team swept every series of the playoffs going 10-0 on their way to being crowned champions. From 32 teams down to the final out, the Golden Tigers showed dominance at the plate as well as on the mound.
After opening the playoffs at home against Boaz and sweeping the series 10-9, 3-2, Russellville traveled to Etowah for a road series in round two of the state playoffs.
Russellville began a trend in the second round by exploding offensively, 16-3, in game one before a more tense second game. The Golden Tigers dispatched of Etowah 1-0 in the second game. Game two of each series was handled by starting pitcher Jacob Green.
The next round saw Russellville return home to host East Limestone in a series that got out of hand in a hurry for the Indians. The bats of the Golden Tigers were too much—as was found out by many pitchers across the state—and Russellville went on to take the series 11-1, 10-3 on their way to the semifinals.
Head Coach Chris Heaps said after that series that he liked the way his team was starting to look.
“We are really turning it on at a good time,” Heaps said. “We are hitting the ball very well right now and our pitching is doing what I know they can do.”
A final road series against Alexandria was all that stood between Russellville and their goal of making it to Montgomery. And that Alexandria team served as a turning point in the season for the Golden Tigers.
Heaps said that during a game at the end of March his team came from behind to win a tough game against Alexandria and afterward he talked with their coach.
“He told me we were the best competition they had faced so far in the season and that he was impressed,” Heaps said. “We said we would probably see each other later on in the season, in the playoffs.”
The Golden Tigers tallied 18 runs on 20 hits to break open the first game of that series. Cody Greenhill went 4 and 2/3 innings for the Golden Tigers before Skyler Stevens came in as relief. Russellville pitching surrendered only five runs on eight hits to a team containing one of the best batters in the state—Cody Dodd of Alexandria.
That performance put the Golden Tigers into the championship series against Helena. And the rest, as they say, is history.
With only two seniors graduating, Head Coach Chris Heaps and his staff look to bring back a solid team in 2016 to defend their 5A state title.
