Over the last couple of seasons, it’d be hard to argue that any basketball player in Dallas County shoots the three-ball better than Selma junior Jamya Smith.

Listed at exactly 5-feet-tall, Smith doesn’t fit the profile of a basketball player that would strike fear in opposing teams, but that’d be a mistake. Last season, she made 91 three-pointers and averaged 11.6 points per game, with most of those coming on shots from the outside.

“My first instinct is ‘Jamya is open, throw her the ball,’ said Selma senior Charmekia Moore.

All Smith needs is a little space to get her shot off and once she does, it often finds the bottom of the net.

“It just came naturally,” Smith said. “When I played at the YMCA and when I was young, I used to play with a lot of boys. They didn’t have a boy league or a girl league, it was just all boys and girls, so I just started shooting.”

All of that practice has paid off.  Last season, Smith was the second leading scorer on a Saints’ team that advanced to the Alabama High School Athletic Association’s class 6A quarterfinals.

“She practices until she gets tired of shooting so she can make her shot perfect,” Moore said.

During last season, Smith’s shooting talents were on display in one of the county’s biggest girls’ games of the year.

Selma hosted eventual 1A state champion Keith and for the early part of the game, the Bears were in control.

Smith got off to a rough start. She missed her first eight three-pointers of the game and Keith took advantage to take a 28-12 lead late in the second quarter.

Selma head coach Anthony Harris told her to keep shooting, confident her luck would change.

“If she shoots it 50 times, I’m going to tell her to continue to shoot it,” Harris said after the game.

Coming out of the locker room, everything changed. Smith caught fire in the third quarter, hitting back-to-back threes only five seconds apart to tie the game at 35. With her confidence back, she kept shooting and as each three rattled in the Selma crowd seemed to get a bit louder.

“I just flicked the motion,” Smith said of that night, while acting out her shooting stroke.

“When it came in my hand, I just started shooting and kept shooting from them on. When they passed me the ball, I’d just catch it and shoot. I didn’t hesitate about it.”

By the time the quarter was over, Smith had nailed six three-pointers in a row and Selma’s deficit had morphed into a 40-39 lead. The Saints held on for a 47-45 win.

It was a glimpse at just how much Smith’s shooting touch can swing a game if she’s on fire.

That’s why Harris said she’s got the ultimate green light to shoot the ball.

“She has it as soon as she walks in the schoolyard every day,” Harris said with a laugh.

This year she may be asked to have the ball in her hands more to keep defenders paying attention. Most of the last two seasons, Smith has gotten open due to Selma’s floor spacing and by coming off screens.

She’s expected to be a big part of a Saints’ team that returns its top five scorers in Areyana Williams, Smith, Jacquetta Dailey, Kynadra Lewis and Kierra Armstead.

The Saints start their season Friday with the first of two matchups with Keith.