Girls basketball: Brooke Spychalski, Yorkville race past Oswego

OSWEGO – Brooke Spychalski prefers to play fast, and the same can be said for her Yorkville teammates.

The Foxes, they can be a blur.

Yorkville is at its best when it is controlling the boards, getting the ball and going. Any one of Yorkville’s girls can take it. On Saturday, Oswego simply could not keep up.

The Foxes hit the host Panthers with fast starts in the first quarter, and in a decisive 28-point third quarter. Spychalski, a junior guard, scored a game-high 21 points in just three quarters of Yorkville’s 67-45 win over Oswego in the Southwest Prairie Conference.

“It’s just more fun to play fast,” Spychalski said. “When you’re slow, there is no energy. You have to get it going.”

Yorkville (18-8, 10-2) has it going with three straight wins this week, and five wins over its last six games. Madi Spychalski had 12 points and five rebounds, Kenzie Sweeney scored 11 points and Lainey Gussman had seven points and nine rebounds for the Foxes. Kendall Grant scored 13 points and Maggie Voller added nine for Oswego (5-19, 1-10).

The Panthers, after spotting Yorkville a 20-7 lead after a quarter, were still within 27-16 at halftime, and 29-18 a minute into the second half. From there, though, the Foxes hit Oswego with a 15-2 run capped off by a Brooke Spychalski driving layup for a 44-20 lead.

“They have a lot of talent. They’re big, they’re strong and they’re fast,” Oswego coach Dave Lay said of Yorkville, noting the physical disparity from his team that plays five sophomores. “They are bigger and stronger than us. They were beating us down the court, pushing us around. They had their way with us. We have some work to do.”

Spychalski, who scored nine of her 21 in the third quarter, gave Yorkville its biggest lead, 48-22, with a steal and score. Yorkville, on the other hand, committed just three turnovers in the third quarter after coughing the ball up 13 times in the first half.

The Foxes also nearly doubled Oswego on the glass, which their coach took note of.

“We rebounded. When we rebound that means we can transition and when we can transition that usually means we’re playing well,” Yorkville coach Kim Wensits said. “That is obviously what happened. We picked up our defensive intensity and we also didn’t turn it over. Those turnovers kept [Oswego] in it. It’s amazing when you don’t turn the ball over how much you can score.”

“Coach said at halftime we needed to stop turning the ball over,” Spychalski said. “I felt like in the first quarter we were getting a lot of turnovers. I knew something had to happen. We had to get it going. When I get it going my teammates feel that energy.”

Grant scored near her scoring average to lead Oswego, but the Panthers couldn’t complement their sophomore post’s work from the outside. Oswego shot just 3-for-19 from beyond the 3-point arc.

“We feel like we left points out there, and they [Yorkville] can score points just like that,” Lay said. “I think we’ve made a lot of progress as season’s gone on, but we’ve hit a shooting slump. The last two games I think we’ve shot 3-for-36. When we’re rolling we hit five, six, seven 3s.”

Yorkville is rolling, and with one more win can match last season’s win total. Two more wins and the Foxes would reach the 20-win mark for the first time since the 2017-2018 season.

“They realized, this is a game we needed to come out and play. We have four games left, seeding out this week, you have to have these wins,” Wensits said. “We talked about it at halftime and they responded.

“As a coach, if you can get to 20 wins in a season, that’s exciting. My first two years we hit 20 wins and it’s been a five-year drought. We were close last year. We have an opportunity to do some great things, if we keep taking it one game at a time. The rest will take care of itself. We’re in the driver’s seat.”

Spychalski, for one, is already circling a game Feb. 6 at Oswego East. The Wolves beat the Foxes in December, and currently hold a one-game lead in the conference race on Yorkville.

“We have to beat Oswego East to win conference and we’re trying to get a good seed for regionals – and I think we can win one,” Spychalski said. “We need to string wins together.”