RHS teams fight through tough week
By Brannon King / For the FCT
Boys
Hamilton 81, Russellville 59
The Golden Tigers traveled to Hamilton Monday night to take on the Aggies and struggled after a good start by RHS in the first quarter.
Russellville jumped out to a quick 8-0 lead after a three-pointer by Lucas McNutt and five points by Devin Buckhalter. However, the Aggies got into a rhythm and outscored Russellville 23-20 in the period.
After Buckhalter picked up his seventh point of the game, he fell to the floor with 2:13 remaining in the first quarter and grabbed his foot, which was also injured during the previous football season. As a precaution, he did not return to action during the game.
Ultimately, the injury along with foul trouble and inexperience proved to be too much for Russellville to overcome.
“When you paint a picture of adversity, I think we had that handed to us tonight,” Russellville head coach Patrick Odom said. “Obviously, there’s never a plan for one of your best players going down early. We went out to a big lead, and that really changed the flow when he went down. Then, we had to manage a lot of fouls, and the big picture is that we have a lot of inexperienced guys who are having to grow quickly.
“We’ve got to learn the attention-to-detail and consistency of what we have to do for 32 minutes,” Odom added.
Russellville (1-1) was led in scoring by McNutt with 15 points. He was followed by Chandler Dyas (10), Caden Parker (8), Buckhalter (7), Calen Bragwell (6), Logan Jones (6), Brock Malone (4), Houston Kitterman (2) and Brooks Scott (1).
Girls
Danville Thanksgiving Tournament
The Lady Golden Tigers returned to action in the Danville Thanksgiving Tournament with a game Nov. 21 against Hanceville. Treyvia Pruitt led RHS with 19 points, but the Lady Golden Tigers ultimately fell 59-52.
Nov. 22 the Lady Golden Tigers took down Red Bay in a battle of Franklin County schools.
The two teams played an exciting game that came down to the end. Russellville led at the end of the opening period by two points, and Red Bay battled back to take a four-point lead into the half. The game was tied going into the final quarter, and RHS was able to claim their first win of the season in thrilling fashion.
Madison Murray led the way for Russellville with 19 points.
In the final game of the Danville Thanksgiving Tournament for RHS, the Lady Golden Tigers couldn’t quite take down the Hatton Hornets, losing 55-51.
RHS trailed 30-23 at the half, and the Lady Golden Tigers were down by nine going into the fourth quarter. Murray (17) and Pruitt (13) scored in double figures for RHS.
Hamilton 59, Russellville 51
Russellville went to Hamilton Monday night and battled the Lady Aggies. Russellville got a solid game from Autumn Logan, who led RHS with 18 points before she left with just over a minute remaining in the contest with an apparent knee injury.
The Lady Golden Tigers (1-5) outscored the Lady Aggies 17-13 in the third quarter but couldn’t find a way to take the victory in the final period.
“Six games into it, I like the direction that we are headed,” Russellville head coach Corey Thomaston said. “I feel like we are correcting things; we just haven’t had a chance to practice. We’ve practiced once in the last ten days because we’ve played six times. It’s a lot of games in a short period, which is great to find out where you are, but when do you have time to adjust?
“So, we’re going to have to learn to adjust on the fly and get these girls to really pick things up on film and in the few little practices that we do get. I think we will be fine by the time we get into area play next week.”
