Macie Jones, Yorkville close out hard-fought win over Plainfield North

YORKVILLE – Yorkville coach Kim Wensits said that Macie Jones is tentative by nature, a quiet kid off the court.

She made quite a loud impression Tuesday.

Wensits' message to her team prior to the game with Plainfield North was that they’d key in on Yorkville senior Brooke Spychalski, a game after she scored her 1,000th career point, and others needed to step up.

“We told them that you need to take offense to that,” Wensits said, “and show them that you can score too.”

Jones got the message, loud and clear.

The 5-foot-7 junior guard scored six of her 12 points in the teeth of a close fourth quarter, and played a huge role in her team’s rebounding edge.

The Foxes bore down defensively to hold the visiting Tigers without a made field goal over a late four-minute stretch and rallied for a 49-48 win in the Southwest Prairie Conference.

Lainey Gussman had 15 points and five rebounds and Jones 12 points and nine rebounds for Yorkville (10-6, 5-1), which led by seven on two occasions in the first half, got down by four midway through the fourth quarter but persevered.

Bella Phillips' two free throws with 1:48 left gave the Foxes the lead for good, 47-45.

“Last year we didn’t have very many wins where we got behind and clawed back. We were down 10 in the first half to Oswego East and came back and won, too,” Wensits said. “The kids just stayed calm and they didn’t panic, kept chipping away. They didn’t stop, they didn’t quit, it was a physical game and they kept battling.”

Jones, a lanky guard, was right in the middle of that action.

She hit two free throws to cut Plainfield North’s four-point lead to 42-40 with 4:40 left, and a minute later scored off a missed free throw for a three-point possession to make it a one-point game.

A minute after that, Jones cut to the basket to receive a clever baseline feed from Madi Spychalski to give Yorkville a 45-44 lead with 2:43 left.

“I always try to find the open spot on the court where no one is,” Jones said. “That happened there, and they were able to assist me well.”

Jones, always seemingly in the right place at the right time, scored all of her points near the basket. If it’s not typical for a 5-7 guard, Wensits wasn’t surprised.

“It’s her basketball IQ,” Wensits said. “She did a great job of reading the lanes and when they would double she would find the gaps and get to the rim.”

Kaitlyn Sedillo scored 12 points and Isabella Gruber seven for Plainfield North (10-6, 2-3), which trailed 24-22 at halftime, but surged ahead 36-34 after three quarters and twice led by four points in the fourth quarter.

Sedillo’s score in transition with 4:54 left gave the Tigers a 42-38 lead, but it was their last made field goal until Sedillo’s 3-pointer in the final seconds and Yorkville had the game in hand.

“Yorkville has some talented players, and a lot of good athletes,” Plainfield North coach Brittany McWaine said. “They made the adjustments. We didn’t.”

Wensits said the adjustment was nothing that she did, but rather her players.

“I talk a lot about how I have a veteran group and I have a lot of trust in my group,” Wensits said. “In one of the timeouts I said to them I felt like we weren’t getting the stops we needed and I said do we need to change it up and they were like no and I was like ‘OK, let’s go do this.' At that point they stepped it up, they did a better job of closing out on their shooters and I thought rebounding was huge for us.”

Indeed, while Yorkville struggled to 8-for-22 shooting over the middle two quarters, and Brooke Spychalski had just one made basket the Foxes persevered through its rebounding.

Yorkville had nine offensive rebounds in the first half, and Jones alone had five for the game.

“Part of that is I play the top of the zone so I know to cross down and get rebounds,” Jones said. “I always try to be as physical as I possibly can to get rebounds.”

Plainfield North, though, scored the last five points of the first half to close within 24-22, and neither team led by four the rest of the way.

“We had to come out and respond,” McWaine said. “I think my girls played a lot harder in the second half than they did the first.”