Naperville North’s Anna Richards has a unique nickname, courtesy of her teammates.
Its back story may say something about the senior guard’s future.
“We have affectionately named her ‘Bronco Sport Benny,’” Naperville North junior guard Sam Kelly said. “She’s driven us around, so it’s just something that kind of came up over the rides for laughs.
“She loves cars — Mustangs, Camaros.”
Indeed, Richards, who drives a Bronco, wants to be a mechanical engineer, in part so she can work on cars.
“I really like science,” she said. “I’m good at math. I just love to build stuff. It seems like fun.”
Richards would get plenty of opportunities to do that as an engineer, but she’s particularly passionate about cars. So far, she has only driven them, but the Milwaukee School of Engineering commit will get a chance to tinker with them soon.
“MSOE has a Formula E car that we get to work on,” Richards said. “And then we can get to race it.”
Working on muscle cars requires brainpower. Richards is a straight-A student who also averages 12.0 points, 2.1 rebounds and 1.5 steals for the Huskies (13-13, 4-3). But getting her to talk about her achievements is like trying to get water out of a rock.
What’s Richards’ GPA?
“I think it is 4.18, maybe,” she said.
That drew a laugh from Kelly.
“It’s got to be higher than that,” Kelly said. “She’s too humble about everything — basketball, academics.
“I wish she had a bigger ego sometimes, which I know a lot of people don’t say about their friends. Everybody knows how she’s an amazing person and an amazing athlete. She’s just too shy to brag about it.”
But Richards isn’t shy about shooting and for good reason. She’s shooting 41.4% on 2-point attempts, 35.8% from beyond the arc and 91.7% from the free-throw line.
That production often gets overshadowed by junior guard Natalie Frempong, the Huskies’ leading scorer who routinely takes far more shots and has more than 1,000 career points. But Richards’ contributions are vital.
“Anna’s shot is huge for our offense,” Kelly said. “Obviously, Natalie does a lot, but I feel like it’s important for a well-rounded team to have multiple people scoring.
“When Anna can get hot, her shot is just automatic, and having a shooter like that is so helpful.”
Richards got hot at the right time during Naperville North’s 64-55 DuPage Valley Conference victory against crosstown rival Naperville Central on Friday.
Frempong scored 22 of her game-high 27 points in the first half to give the Huskies a 16-point halftime lead. But the host Redhawks (12-15, 4-3) held Frempong without a basket in the second half and cut the lead to 49-46 midway through the fourth quarter.
Richards sank 3-pointers on each of the next two possessions to give the Huskies a 55-48 cushion.
“We’ve definitely been pushing her to do a lot of things and be impactful on both ends of the floor, and tonight I think she did that,” Naperville North coach Aly Miller said Friday. “She didn’t get a ton of open shots, but she did a lot of good things defensively, doubling down low, getting deflections.”
But shooting is Richards’ bread and butter, and she feasted down the stretch. All 12 of her points came on 3-pointers, three of which came in the second half.
Richards added two assists, including a pass to Kelly, who hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key with 1:38 left after the Redhawks had pulled within 55-53.
“We have all the confidence in her, and it’s great she has the confidence,” Miller said of Richards. “They did a good job on her, but she hit the ones when it mattered, so it was great.”
Richards doesn’t require a lot of shots to stay in rhythm.
“If I’m open, I’ll shoot the ball, try to create shots for myself,” she said. “I practice so much, I know that even if I miss one, the next one is going to go in. So I just have to keep my mind right and not think about the last shot, and think about the shots that I’m going to shoot.”
Kelly loves how Richards can perform under pressure.
“The fact that Anna was getting face-guarded probably the entire game and was still able to come (through) is insane,” Kelly said. “It speaks to Anna as a player as a whole.”
Matt Le Cren is a freelance reporter.
