DANVILLE – Knowing things will be very different in the next basketball season without All-County performer Taylor Hollingsworth, Hanceville began the process Tuesday, participating in the Danville High School basketball play-day series at Wayne Bowling Gymnasium.
The month of June is designated for varsity, junior varsity and middle school teams in the Alabama High School Athletic Association as a time to analyze what they will be putting on the floor when the 2016-17 season starts in early November.
Coach Christina Watson has three starters back in Kaela Hall, Karmen Johnson and Desi Hackney, along with experience in reserves Brooke Barnett, Malia Howell and Kia Merriweather.
But when Hollingsworth graduated in May and accepted an offer to play in the ACCC at Wallace State, the leader of the ball club and the primary offensive weapon left with her.
Hanceville suffered a loss in a double-figure scorer, defender, rebounder and pure hustler from one end to the other of the hardwood.
The Lady Bulldogs will look to put together scoring spurts from each as they showed Tuesday in solid second half performances with Winfield and Brewer.
Trailing 17-5 to Winfield at halftime, the Lady Bulldogs fought back and cut the margin to a field goal with 40 seconds remaining. But Winfield was able to run out the clock and post a 26-24 triumph.
Brewer, bolstered by the addition of two quality transfers- Shyan Flack from Arab and Jaci Andrews from Falkville, dominated the first 20 minutes of the game and led 27-6 at halftime.
Hanceville never threw in the towel. The Lady Bulldogs outscored Brewer 25-21 in the second half to keep the game respectable by a final margin of 48-31.
Winning is not important in June, it's getting a team ready to go five months from now.
In the second half of both games, Hanceville got scoring from Johnson at close range, Howell from the outside plus Hall and Merriweather driving in transition opportunities.
Then add the hard out effort of eighth-grader Cassidy Campbell who was producing points, plus going to war in the paint with Flack and having a series of rebounds to give the team possessions they needed to overcome a poor first half from the offensive side.
Watson said her team has at least three more dates of play-day assignments. The Lady Bulldogs will be in the Danville camp at Decatur Heritage School June 16, head to Tom Drake Coliseum for the camp hosted by Birmingham Southern College on the 21st and take a trip into Blount County for the Locust Fork play-day June 23.
This is the 12th year Danville girls’ coach Paul Wilson has hosted play-days (also known as team camps). He has expanded the event, including venues at Falkville, Hartselle, Decatur Heritage and for the first time, is heading into Russellville in Franklin County later in the month.
Five varsity girls’ teams from Cullman County have signed on for different dates for good summertime competition and workouts.
The varsity is also included in this sports spectacular along with middle school programs.
West Point's varsity and JV will participate in a play-day Thursday at Falkville High School's Tom Drake Gymnasium.
The Good Hope Lady Raiders and Cold Springs Lady Eagles will come to Falkville for three-game assignments with out-of-town opposition on Friday.
Cold Springs will have varsity, JV and middle school teams travel into the valley of Morgan County Monday for the play-day at Brewer High School.
Fairview Lady Aggies are to be at Decatur Heritage June 14 while Good Hope gets a return assignment to Falkville the same day.
Holly Pond Lady Broncos are on tap to play at Falkville June 16 in varsity and junior varsity. Good Hope will be bound that day for games in the beautiful facility at Hartselle High School.
Wilson reported the biggest day that he has ever hosted will be on June 21 with 50 teams coming to five different gymnasiums. Games will be played that day for varsity at Danville with girls’ games to take place among three gymnasiums on the Hartselle campus.
We will have numerous reports from these camps for the remainder of the month.
