What a difference a year has made for Waukegan sophomore Evelyn Petty.
The 5-foot-5 guard has transformed from a raw but promising rookie into a key contributor who’s playing her best basketball for a winning team when it matters most.
“Last year, I feel like I wasn’t really ready, but I had to just go in there and play as best I could,” Petty said. “This year, I made a huge step. I worked hard and showed my team that I could be there for them and help out.”
Petty not only helps out. During fifth-seeded Waukegan’s come-from-behind 40-37 win against third-seeded Mundelein in the Class 4A Lake Zurich Regional semifinals on Tuesday, she also showed the ability to lead. She scored a team-high 11 points and played a big part in the Bulldogs’ defensive effort, which forced their North Suburban Conference rival into 25 turnovers.
It was the type of all-around performance that could become much more common during Petty’s next two seasons. But it came in very handy as Waukegan (18-9), which will play second-seeded Lake Zurich (23-7) in the regional championship game at 7 p.m. Thursday, rallied in the fourth quarter to overcome a 29-22 deficit.
As Petty and the Bulldogs buckled down, Mundelein (19-13) committed 10 turnovers in the fourth.
“We knew we wanted to speed them up,” Petty said. “We kept fighting because we wanted this game badly. It was win or go home. We pulled everything out of our gas tank and just kept fighting, even though stuff wasn’t falling.”
Petty was referring to a series of missed layups, most of which came on the heels of Mundelein turnovers forced by Waukegan’s aggressive 1-2-2 zone, where Petty is situated along the back row.
Being able to count on Petty like that represents a big leap forward from last season, when Waukegan won just seven games, but is not entirely surprising since she has always had the well-rounded skill set to make an impact in different ways.
“This year, she knew what she was up against coming in, and she was ready,” Waukegan coach Kanisha Pettis said. “She’s definitely picked it up as far as her toughness and being able to mix it up. She’s becoming a more consistent shooter and is helping out with handling the ball. She’s getting better every game.”
Shooting is something that Petty, who entered the game averaging 6.4 points, considers to be one of her primary strengths. She was connecting on 34% of her shots from beyond the arc and then hit two 3-pointers against Mundelein, both at junctures when Waukegan was struggling to put the ball in the basket.
Petty points to the Bulldogs’ recent conference road win against Warren as a turning point for her. She scored a career-high 18 points in that game, but her positive memory of it isn’t only about the numbers in the box score.
“That was my first step where I knew that I was here and I was going to take steps to help my team out more,” Petty said. “When we got rattled, I told my team, ‘We got this, and we’re going to stick together.’ We fought to the end.”
Waukegan needed to scrap right to the end to advance to the matchup against Lake Zurich, which won both conference meetings during the regular season.
That’s a trait that senior center Baakir Christian, a Zion-Benton transfer, has seen in Petty since the beginning of the season.
“Since I met her, she’s just all energetic, and she’s like that all the time,” Christian said. “The energy doesn’t ever go away. If one player is down, she can energize the whole room. She just wakes up energetic.”
Steve Reaven is a freelance reporter.
