By Daniel Evans

The Selma Times-Journal

Last year, Dallas County’s season ended on a Dora buzzer beater in the Class 4A Central Regional.

The No. 1 ranked Hornets led the game by as many as 13 points and led by seven with under five minutes to play before watching Dora storm back for a miracle win.

This summer, Dallas County is hoping hard will put the Hornets back in position to make a run at the 4A state title.

“I have high expecations every year, in particular this year. We have a lot of kids, “ Dallas County head coach William Moore said. “Our juniors have been on the varsity for three years and our seniors have been on the varsity for four, so my expectation level is very high for us this year.”

This summer, Dallas County has taken part in two playdates and another scheduled playdate was cancelled.

“We played two playdates and it went very well. We only lost two games this summer,” Moore said. “We lost those two because we only had six players at one playdate but we went ahead and played it anyways because I had kids that were doing camps and summer—out of state AAU and all that—but I have been pleased with our work this summer with our team.”

Moore said that it has been a struggle with getting players to practice this summer, because of AAU tournaments.

“Barring injury, we should have quite a bit of experience coming back. We need a little more dedication from the kids as far as getting to practice on a consistent basis,” Moore said. “With basketball, with AAU and all, chances are with us that we rarely ever have our complete team at practice because kids have AAU practice and AAU games and tournaments and stuff. That sort of us has dicated some of what we can do with our schedule.”

However, Moore likes that his players participate in AAU basketball and believes it may end up paying off come high school basketball season.

“I understand that it’s the summer,” Moore said. “I would rather a kid play at a AAU game than to be at our practice. That has kind of been our philosophy with that because they need the game experience.”

Moore believes that having many players on his team playing AAU basketball this summer will end up paying off when the season gets underway.

“I think that is going to help pay dividends for us when the season starts,” Moore said of his players that are using the summer as an opportunity to play in AAU basketball tournaments.

One of the players that has been hard to spot at a Dallas County practice this summer is 6-8 forward William Lee, who is No. 65 in ESPN’s recruiting rankings for the class of 2014.

Lee is being recruited hard by schools all over the country and has spent his offseason going to various camps all around the country

Lee averaged a triple double last season. He scored around 19 points per game and averaged over 10 blocks and 10 rebounds per contest.

He was named the Class 4A Player of the Year and was picked to play in the AHSAA All-star game scheduled for July 17 in Montgomery at Alabama State University’s Dunn-Oliver Acadome.

Dallas County is looking for two additional playdates to get into before the summer is over.