Russellville ends football season with playoff loss to Fairview
The Russellville Golden Tigers hosted Fairview in round two of the AHSAA Class 5A football playoffs Friday night, and the Aggies got the win by a 35-21 final score to end the RHS season.
Fairview got the scoring started with a 13-yard touchdown run on the opening possession of the contest, but the extra-point kick was no good. Russellville answered with a nine-play scoring drive that ended with Conner Warhurst in the end zone on a two-yard TD run. The Manny Martinez PAT kick was good to give RHS the lead with 3:51 remaining in the first quarter.
RHS also got scores on an 18-yard carry by TJ King and a 5-yard by Warhurst.
Russellville finished the season with a record of 9-3.
“9-3 is not too shabby off a team that lost 17 starters,” said Russellville head coach John Ritter. “A lot of people wrote us off before the year ever started: ‘What’s your defense going to do? What’s your offensive line going to do?’ What they did is, they responded, and they got after it.
“We won nine games and played a tough schedule and made it to the second round and unfortunately got beat here.”