Basketball season continues for Russellville Golden Tigers with area games

The Russellville High School varsity basketball teams had an important week of area games with matchups versus the Brewer Patriots and the Lawrence County Red Devils.

Russellville’s boys went to Brewer and defeated the Patriots by a score of 77-64. The Golden Tigers’ win completed the regular season sweep of Brewer.

RHS led 13-10 after one quarter of play and held a 38-31 advantage at the half. The two teams played to a 16-16 third period before Russellville outpaced Brewer 23-17 during the game’s fourth quarter.

EJ King led RHS with 33 points, and Jah Williams added 14. Mike Young, KJ Murray and Malachi Duncan scored seven each, Amir Williams had six and Gavin Hyde scored three.

The RHS boys improved to 4-0 in area play with a dominating home win over Lawrence County on Dec. 12 by a score of 97-51.

Russellville led 25-15 at the end of the first quarter and grew the advantage to 54-29 at the half. The Golden Tigers outscored the Red Devils 22-11 in the third period and 21-11 in the fourth quarter.

Junior, EJ King continued his season with 35 points. Gavin Hyde added 20 points and Malachi Duncan had 14. KJ Murray scored eight, Mike Young seven, Jah Williams six, Rylan Pratt five and Cam Phinizee added two points.

The Golden Tigers accomplished their win without their senior starters, Amir Williams and Bralynn Vincent. RHS hopes to have Vincent back on the court, but Williams could be out for the season because of an injury.

“I thought our guys gave everybody a life lesson on how you handle adversity with a couple of guys out,” Russellville head coach Patrick Odom said. “I’m proud of our guys. I thought we checked all the boxes. We played well offensively and defensively. We got out and ran, we shared the ball and we played like we know we’re capable of playing.”

The RHS girls split area matchups against Brewer and Lawrence County. Russellville defeated the Lady Patriots by a 58-52 score but fell to LCHS 59-44. Head coach Jermaine Groce’s Lady Golden Tigers are now 8-10 on the season and 2-2 in area play.

Against Brewer, Russellville trailed 12-6 after one quarter of action and rallied to go ahead 24-21 going into the halftime break. RHS finished strong to get the win by outscoring Brewer 20-13 down the stretch.

Ella Copeland and Jacey Moore led Russellville with 15 points each. Laila Hill scored 10, Avery Watts had eight, Jemma Moore added six, Alexia Groce had three and Desiree Medina scored one point.

Lawrence County used a 20-8 second quarter to pull away from RHS and take a 31-18 lead just before the half on the way to a Lady Devils win.

Ella Copeland scored 24 points to again lead the Lady Tigers and Jacey Moore scored nine. Avery Watts, Jemma Moore and Desiree Medina had three points each and Laila Hill scored two points.

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