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P.O. Male Athlete of the Week: Cody Gustafson


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If your basketball coach is comparing you to Andy Enfield, consider it a very fine compliment.

Shippensburg coach Ray Staver, who coached Enfield - the current coach at Southern California - when he played for the Greyhounds, sees some of his former star in Cody Gustafson.

"For a guard, shooting 40 percent from the field is pretty good," Staver said. "Cody is shooting 51 percent right now, and the only other guard I've had with those kind of numbers is Andy Enfield, who shot 54 percent his senior year."

Gustafson, the Public Opinion Male Athlete of the Week, was at it again last week, totaling 53 points in a string of wins against Greencastle-Antrim, James Buchanan and East Pennsboro to raise his average to 16.0.

Staver said, "I saw him play in the summer and I could see he'd improved dramatically since last year, which was a nice development for us. He's hard to guard. He shoots a lot of layups because he can get to the rim, but he's hit a good number of threes, too."

Gustafson has a simple answer for his improvement: He has a much different role this year.

"We had three scorers last year (when he averaged 5.9 ppg), so I was just trying to get them the ball," Gustafson said. "We lost those pieces, so Carter (Van Scyoc) and I had to step up our scoring."

The other big factor in the Hounds' 15-7 record is that the team is sprinkled with kids who also played football, and that success - reaching the District 3 Class 4A championship - has carried through.

Gustafson said, "The confidence from football has definitely made a difference. We saw that we could play at that level and we've tried to carry it right through. Look at what the wrestling team did last week (reached the district semifinals). We just want to keep it going.

"We think we're playing our best basketball of the season now, so we're just going to go out and do what we can do."

Cody Gustafson, Shippensburg

Sport: Basketball

Grade: Senior

Height: 6-foot-2

Parents: Kevin and Megan Gustafson

Interests: Gustafson was a star wide receiver and defensive back for the Hounds, and will compete in track & field this spring.

Favorite teams: L.A. Lakers, Pittsburgh Steelers

Favorite athletes: Kobe Bryant, Antonio Brown

Statistics: In victories over Greencastle-Antrim, James Buchanan and East Pennsboro last week, Gustafson scored 22, 10 and 21 points, respectively ... For the season, he is averaging 16.0 points.