By Erich Hilkert

Talladega Daily Home

CHILDERSBURG — Top-ranked Dallas County (10-2) held off a late run by Childersburg (3-5) in a 58-53 victory Tuesday night in part because of a big night from Jerrod Moorer.

Moorer made eight three-pointers to lead the Hornets with 24 points.

“Jerrod can shoot the lights out and he shot it tonight, but the coach in me wonders if he doesn’t make those shots tonight, do you still win the game? Those are the things I try to get my kids to understand,” Dallas County head coach Willie Moore said. “You’ve got to play for 32 minutes and we didn’t play for 32 minutes tonight, we didn’t play hard the whole game.”

Childersburg’s defense kept them in the game, but turnovers on offense proved to be costly.

“They were killers, the turnovers,” Childersburg head coach Al Barnett said. “We had a situation where we were down seven and we got the ball to mid-court, had Kel (Mitchell) open and missed the pass. We had some bad turnovers at mid-court against their pressure. Take that and the 3-pointers No. 5 (Moorer) made and that’s the difference in the game. I think he had eight.”

Dallas County led 22-18 at the half but used a 16-4 run where Moorer made four three-pointers to extend their lead to 38-24.

Childerburg refused to go away, going on a 8-1 run to close the game to 42-35 in the third quarter.

From there, Dallas County went on another 11-0 to take its largest lead of the game at 53-35. The Tigers answered with a 18-5 run to end the game, but it was too little, too late.

“We didn’t convert every time on turnovers, which we’ve got to work on that,” Barnett said. “We’ve got to work on making shots around the basket. Of course, when you’ve got to 6-9 guys in there, that makes it a little difficult to make some of those shots.”

UAB commit William Lee scored 14 points for the Hornets in the defeat.

The Hornets next game is in the Dallas County Classic Tournament Friday. Dallas County will take on the wiunner of the Selma-Central Hayneville game at 9 p.m.