By Brannon King for the FCT

The Russellville girls’ and boys’ varsity basketball teams hosted Winfield Thursday night, and the Pirates won both games against the Golden Tigers.

Winfield took the girls’ game in overtime 48-42 and later defeated the Golden Tigers by an 83-58 score in boys’ action.

The Lady Golden Tigers (1-10) fell behind 10-0 to start the game before finally getting their first basket with 2:30 remaining in the opening quarter. The Lady Pirates used a suffocating defense to gain a 13-6 lead after one period.

Russellville battled back in the second quarter and outscored Winfield 12-7 and only trailed by two points at the half, with the help of good defense and rebounding.

The two teams kept the score close throughout the second half as RHS outscored Winfield 13-12 in the third quarter and 9-8 in the fourth. Russellville had a chance to win the game in regulation time on the final possession of the fourth quarter, but a shot before the buzzer after a throw-in did not go in for the victory. The Lady Pirates were then able to pull away in overtime by outscoring RHS 8-2.

“I was really proud of our girls’ effort tonight physically; I thought mentally, we had some lapses,” Russellville Head Coach Corey Thomaston said. “I thought we defended exceptionally well tonight but just couldn’t come up with the big shot down the stretch in regulation. I think we just ran out of gas in overtime. We were short-benched tonight and had girls on the floor that played a lot of minutes.”

Madison Murray led Russellville in scoring with 14 points. Kallie Allen had 11 points, while Treyvia Pruitt added ten. Makayla Phifer (5) and KK Harvey (2) also scored for RHS.

In the boys’ game, both teams got off to a fast start with good outside shooting. Winfield was able to grab a 26-25 lead at the end of one high-scoring quarter.

It was the middle of the game when the Pirates were able to pull away. Russellville (5-2) was outscored 43-19 in the second and third quarters combined, and Winfield made 13 three-pointers in the first three quarters of the contest to get total control of the game.

“We basically got beat in every phase. For us, everything we do and what makes us good is built off of defensive stops, and that obviously never happened tonight,” Russellville Head Coach Patrick Odom said. “We didn’t prepare very well the last couple of days, and therefore, it showed its face tonight, and that’s something our guys have got to learn from and grow.”

Bailey Motes led RHS in scoring with 15 points. Judd Ward and Devin Buckhalter also scored in double figures for Russellville with ten points each. Austin Stidham (8), Taylor Vincent (7), Lucas McNutt (5) and Caden Parker (3) also scored for RHS.