Maeve Hassett is getting used to this leadership deal for Oak Lawn.

The 5-foot-6 guard is the only senior this season for the Spartans in basketball. If that sounds familiar, well, she also was the only senior this fall on the volleyball team.

So the question begs to be asked, how did that all play out? She confirmed the pandemic, which hindered her freshman year and now feels like a long time ago, had a lot to do with it.

“I feel like a lot of the girls in my grade, they just kind of stopped playing sports,” Hassett said with a shrug. “And I feel like I was the only girl who stuck with it.

“Even last year, and I think maybe even the year before, there was barely anyone my age on the team in volleyball and basketball.”

Hassett could have used some of that help Friday afternoon as Oak Lawn absorbed a 52-18 loss to Wheaton North in third-round action of the Lyons Thanksgiving Tournament.

She led the Spartans (1-2) with six points and added five rebounds. All of her scoring came on 3-pointers. Hassett also received her team’s player of the game award from the tourney.

Junior guards Teagan Krzystof and Jacky Canales each had four points for Oak Lawn.

Hassett followed Canales’ 3-pointer in the third quarter with her second 3-pointer, cutting the deficit to 26-14. Hassett had to earn all of her points as the Falcons, owning a size advantage, made her a focal point on defense and gave her few solid looks at the basket.

Because of her unique position, leadership has become an innate trait for Hassett, which is much appreciated by teammates like Krzystof.

“Maeve has always been one to bring all of us up,” she said. “During the game, she pulled us all aside and was like, ‘We need to get our heads in and get up and everything.’

“She’s always bringing joy and laughs.”

Oak Lawn coach Mark Sevedge sees the same things.

“When a lot of people maybe decided to go different routes, Maeve is a committed enough athlete and leader that she wanted to stay with her teammates,” Sevedge said. “She wants to be part of something. She’s always been like that.”

By her own admission, Hassett loves to shoot the ball. That was apparent in the first game of the tournament on Nov. 17 against the host Lions. While Oak Lawn lost 56-40, Hassett had 12 points and seven rebounds.

Hassett started her basketball career as a 7-year-old at the Oak Lawn Pavilion before transitioning to travel. If you ask her which sport she prefers — basketball or volleyball — she has to think but not very long.

“I love both of them, but just the fact that I’ve been playing basketball so much longer makes me like it a little bit more,” she said. “I always played basketball with my parents and my siblings.”

That takes us back to her leadership philosophy.

What’s important to her as a leader?

First off, it’s not about yelling at teammates or bossing them around. Instead, Hassett works to lift them up, with the intent of helping each individual to become a leader.

That will be important later this season and next winter, with nine juniors and a sophomore on Oak Lawn’s roster.

“She’s a very open, outgoing person,” Sevedge said. “She just likes to be around her teammates. She leads in that way.”

After high school, Hassett plans is to attend a larger college or university to study accounting. If she gets an offer from a school that interested her, she would consider playing sports.

But which one? Well …

“Probably basketball,” she said with a smile.

Gregg Voss is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.