Both teams came into their All A Classic Fourth Region opener Monday with 9-3 records. The Russellville Panthers made the trip home from Tompkinsville with a 10-3 worksheet. Monroe County stayed home at 9-4.
Coach Trey Tinsley’s Panthers used a balanced attack and excellent shooting to beat the Falcons 60-51.
Jamarion Gardner scored 14, JaCoveon Temple-Dickerson and Dre Vanderpoole 12 each, and Labryan Nourse 10. Jerius Coleman and Darius Browder each hit a pair of three-pointers for 6 points each. Vanterpool also hit two treys.
Browder, an eighth grader, hit a pair of consecutive shots from long range to help seal the win.
The Panthers hit 6 of 12 three-pointers for 50 percent and 16 of 26 from short range for 61.5 percent. Even more impressive was their 10 of 11 free throw accuracy (90.9%).
Nourse had 7 rebounds and Coleman 5, but there weren’t many offensive rebounds to be had with all the good shooting by the Panthers.
Monroe County provided lots of chances for rebounds by hitting only 2 of 17 three-pointers against the Panther defense. Reece Bartley scored 16, Brison Nuckols 15 and Branson Williams 11 for the Falcons. Still Monroe only had two more rebounds than the Panthers, 21-19.
The Panthers will play Clinton County Thursday at 6 p.m. at Cumberland County. The good news for RHS was Clinton’s last loss is to this same Monroe County. The bad news is that game was game played a month ago, and the Bulldogs (13-2) have won 12 straight contests since then. Also, Clinton and Cumberland are small neighboring counties. Russellville is nowhere near a neighbor to them.
Metcalfe County and host Cumberland County will play the second game Thursday.
Clash date uncertain
Adding more drama to this is that we will not know until about 7:30 Thursday night when the Clash of the Cats will be played. Russellville’s teams are scheduled to play at Logan County Friday.
It’s Hall of Fame night at LCHS, and that adds another wrinkle.
Athletic Director Todd Adler of Logan County and his coaches have agreed to postpone the Clash until Saturday night if the Panthers advance to Friday’s All A finals.
That means Hall of Fame inductees and their out-of-county guests aren’t sure when they need to be here.
But it’s a great example of how the two school systems are willing to cooperate with each other.