Dallas County rebounded from Saturday’s loss to Selma with a 44-29 win over Maplesville.

However, Dallas County coach Charles Thompson was not pleased with what he saw as the Hornets won a sloppy affair.

“Though we won, I don’t think we played real well,” said Thompson. “I look at it as a loss. We got in foul trouble. We got outrebounded.”

Maplesville had 25 free throw attempts during the contest, but only earned seven points at the charity stripe.

That stat did nothing to affect Maplesville coach Eric Bailey’s outlook on the contest, though. After losing to Dallas County 59-16 on Dec. 16, Bailey came away from Tuesday’s loss with a sense of improvement.

“I felt like we played a little better,” said Bailey. “We’ve improved, but we’ve still got some work to do. This is a young team.”

From the outset, the game started as a repeat of the Devils’ earlier 43-point drubbing. The Hornets jumped out to an 11-0 lead, and Maplesville could not find the basket for the game’s first 4 1/2 minutes.

However, a Bridget Nichols 3-pointer provided the spark Maplesville needed. They answered Dallas County’s early onslaught with a 13-1 run to capture their first lead at 13-12.

But the Hornets controlled the game the rest of the way. Bianca Heard and Kimberly Ross knocked down 3-pointers to trigger a 10-0 Dallas County run and allowed the Hornets to take a 22-17 lead at the break.

Leading 26-22 in the third quarter, another Heard 3-pointer sparked an 8-0 Dallas County run to extend the lead to 34-22.

Heard and Brittany Richardson led the Hornets (15-8) with 10 points apiece.

Nichols hit four 3-pointers to lead Maplesville (3-10) with 12 points.