Lainey Gussman’s career-high 26 points helps Yorkville rally past Oswego East

YORKVILLE – Lainey Gussman has always been a player who prided herself on filling the stat sheet, doing the dirty work that made for winning basketball.

Confidence, in part, kept Gussman from taking her game to the next level.

Gussman’s confidence must be soaring now.

For the second time in three games, the 5-foot-10 Yorkville senior guard scored a career high in points. Gussman scored 19 of her 26 points in the first half, and the Foxes rallied from an early 10-point deficit to beat visiting Oswego East 63-59 in the Southwest Prairie Conference.

“Confidence is something I have struggled with my whole entire career,” said Gussman, who also had seven rebounds, two assists and two steals. “In the past years I haven’t been as confident, but this summer through AAU and training I’ve got more confident. Just going out there, not carefree, but just clearing my mind and not thinking about it too much.”

Brooke Spychalski added 14 points and Sydney McCabe scored 11 off the bench for Yorkville (5-3, 3-1). Maggie Lewandowski scored 17, Aubrey Lamberti 13 and Desiree Merritt 12 for Oswego East (2-6, 1-3).

Yorkville coach Kim Wensits thinks Gussman might be playing with a bit of a chip on her shoulder, wishing she would have received bigger scholarship offers.

Gussman’s taking it to the court. She scored 20 points in a win over Minooka last week and carried Yorkville for large stretches Thursday. Gussman’s basket two minutes into the third quarter gave the Foxes the lead for good at 40-38.

“I love what she is doing because she is truly just listening and taking to heart the things we’re talking about,” Wensits said. “She is just saying it’s my senior year, I’m going out and nobody is going to stop me. She is saying I’m here to have fun. She has a phenomenal attitude and it’s paying huge dividends for us.”

A player with non-stop energy, Gussman is one that gets most of her offense constantly moving and scoring around the rim. She made her first nine shots Thursday before missing both attempts in the fourth quarter.

“She does so many little things and she just finds crafty ways of getting in good places and making some tough layups, and she’s been making great decisions out of it. Very happy for her,” Wensits said. “She’s put in a lot of work as she always has, and it’s come together. She is like [the movie character] Rudy, but with more talent. I wish other people had her energy.”

Indeed, Oswego East coach Abe Carretto said that a player like Gussman, if defenders are not matching the effort, can be hard to stop.

“I personally think she can do this a lot,” Carretto said. “She’s an Energizer bunny, no doubt.”

Oswego East, which beat Yorkville in overtime last year to win the SPC title, led 34-24 with 2:50 left in the first half after a Merritt 3-pointer. Gussman made two baskets and hit two free throws to close the gap to 36-34 by halftime.

“I thought we did a nice job of staying calm,” Wensits said.

If Gussman looked extra motivated for Thursday’s game, it was no accident.

“We lost to them in the conference championship game last year so this was our get-back game right from the start,” Gussman said. “That was a sour taste from last year. We knew they’d be a tough opponent.”

Indeed, Wensits called Oswego East a “scary” 2-6 team, and they played like it late.

Lewandowski, last year’s conference co-MVP with Lamberti, scored eight of her 17 in the fourth quarter. Her 3-pointer with 2:04 left closed the Wolves within 59-57, after they trailed by seven.

Yorkville turned it over the next two possessions, a 10-second call and charge, but Lewandowski twice missed shots for the tie.

“She [Lewandowski] did a good job of pushing pace a little bit, or controlling the pace,” Carretto said. “Had nice looks when we were down two, shots didn’t fall. Maggie did a good job of keeping us in the game.”

It’s been a young season of momentum swings for Oswego East, which led Bolingbrook by seven in the third quarter Tuesday – an eventual 61-57 loss.

“Main thing for us, we’re scoring points but we need less turnovers and we got to get better on defense,” Carretto said. “We need more stops.”