Does practice make perfect?
It’s an age-old adage about getting better, and 5-foot-10 junior guard Gabe Sanders has been proof positive in the early stages of this season for Yorkville coach John Holakovsky.
“He’s definitely ready for it,” Holakovsky said Tuesday night of Sanders’ emerging leadership role. “Earlier he had 19 points in a game and 16 in another. He can shoot it. He can drive it.
“He has some underrated hops for someone who is 5-10 and has gotten us some big rebounds.”
Sanders was at it again, scoring a team-high 14 points and coming up with several big plays that helped the Foxes hold off host Oswego for a 64-55 Southwest Prairie Conference victory.
Oswego (3-4, 0-3) got a game-high 28 points and eight steals from senior forward Dasean Patton, 11 points from freshman guard Ethan Vahl and nine from junior forward Brayden Borrowman.
The Panthers cut a 19-point deficit early in the fourth to 57-52 with 2:22 remaining on Vahl’s second 3-pointer of the quarter.
But Sanders, who tallied 11 points in the first half, hadn’t scored in the second half for the Foxes (5-2, 3-2). He answered, though, with his second 3-pointer of the game at the 2:00 mark on a feed from junior point guard Frankie Pavlik.
“He’s a shooter,” Oswego coach Nick Oraham said of Sanders. “That was a huge 3-pointer toward the end. We cut it to five, lose him on the back side, and No. 3 makes a nice play and finds him.”
Borrowman followed with his third 3-pointer but Sanders made a leaping grab of an inbounds pass and recorded his second assist of the quarter, feeding senior guard Christian Harrell for a layup.
“We threw that inbounds pass way too high, but he just got all the way up and grabbed it,” Holakovsky said. “Sanders is very athletic and can do some really good things.”
Two Yorkville free throws then sealed it.
“Too little, too late,” Oraham said of his team’s four 3-pointers in the fourth after going 1-for-12 in the middle quarters. “That’s gotta happen in the first three quarters. It’s not good enough.”
Holakovsky wasn’t surprised by Oswego’s comeback.
“Patton is really good and you can’t guard him one way,” Holakovsky said. “Had a bunch of steals in transition. And Vahl can play. They were hurting us, and that opens things up for Borrowman.”
Losing nine of his top 10 players and all five starters to graduation from an 18-win team, Holakovsky knew when he looked at the big picture that he would be relying on newcomers.
It’s why he promoted Sanders and Pavlik last season, in a manner of speaking.
They were two of his leaders on the sophomore team but also spent a lot of time with the varsity, mostly at practice.
“They didn’t play in many games but dressed every single varsity game,” Holakovsky said. “They got in in the blowouts and were pumped up about it.
“I pretty much told them last November, ‘You have to be ready to start and take this over next year.’ It helped them to be varsity ready, playing on the scout team against those good seniors.”
They could also start on the sophomore team since the conference doesn’t have a rule limiting participation.
“My sophomore coach wasn’t very happy when I’d say, ‘I’m taking Frankie and Gabe (for practice), I need that better look,’” Holakovsky said. “Frankie is just a bulldog. He doesn’t mess around or put up with anything. He’s a big, strong point guard, which is pretty unusual.”
Sanders, meanwhile, didn’t want to force anything earlier in the second half.
“I’ve gotta make sure my rhythm is perfect,” he said. “It’s just a feeling at this point, like muscle memory. Then, it’s my moment.
“Frankie and I have been playing together for a long time. Our chemistry is good. He gets me the ball. We’re a younger team but play well together like we’ve been playing for a while.”
