Russellville community comes together to celebrate baseball state title

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The 2022 baseball state championship-winning Russellville Golden Tigers were honored on the night of May 24 with a celebration of their accomplishments this season.

A special called meeting of the Russellville City Council – scheduled to take place at the RHS baseball stadium but moved to the Russellville Middle School gymnasium because of rainy weather – was held to honor the team with a resolution.

The players and coaches were honored by Mayor David Grissom and Councilmen Jamie Harris, Gary Cummings, Darren Woodruff and David Palmer. Also on hand to give congratulations to the team were Rep. Jamie Kiel and David Hester and Jason Miller of the Franklin County Commission, who presented additional resolutions.

“It’s just amazing really,” said Grissom. “They’ve done an excellent job. We were here for the back-to-back-to-back championships in 2015, ’16 and ’17 and now back-to-back here in ’21 and ’22, and it’s just amazing. Coach Heaps and his coaching staff have done an excellent job building the culture that he talks about and working the process.

“It’s amazing for the kids and their families – for the parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters – and it’s just great for the entire Russellville community.”

A short highlight video was played, and head coach Chris Heaps thanked the crowd in attendance for their support of the RHS baseball program.

“What a great, great opportunity for the crowd to come together to celebrate these young men one more time,” Heaps said. “Winning a state championship is special; winning back-to-back is even more special; but the way that they did it with the people that were here – a lot of those people were the ones that were in the crowd during those series. The support that we had throughout the playoffs was incredible, and it was incredible again tonight.”