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Two young sisters died and four adults were injured in a house fire Thursday night in northwest suburban Ingleside.

The girls were identified as Autumn Evans, 5, and Elizabeth Evans, 8, by the Lake County coroner’s office.

Firefighters were called to the blaze about 10:45 p.m. in the 3500 block of North Hunt Avenue and found the home fully engulfed in flames, Fox Lake Fire Protection District Chief Ed Lescher said.

The girls were found on the second floor of the home and pronounced dead, Lescher said.

A woman was rescued from the house and taken to Loyola University Medical Center in critical condition, Lescher said. Three other adults escaped the fire with smoke inhalation and burns.

The cause of the fire was under investigation.

Preliminary autopsy results indicate both girls died from smoke inhalation, the coroner’s office said.

“We have been in close contact with the Evans family,” the coroner’s office said in a statement. “Our heartfelt condolences go out to them. This is truly a tragedy.”

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The two most highly-regarded and decorated players from the class, Duke’s DJ Steward and Illinois’ Adam Miller, have certainly had their moments and been impactful. 

The Class of 2020 hasn’t exactly lit up the college basketball world in the opening weeks of the season.

But the two most highly-regarded and decorated players from the class, Duke’s DJ Steward and Illinois’ Adam Miller, have certainly had their moments and been impactful.

When Duke and Illinois met earlier this week in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge it was a reunion of sorts. Steward and Miller had squared off the past two years as high school basketball stars at Young and Morgan Park, respectively.

Illinois took care of Duke 83-68 with Miller doing what he does best with a trio of three-pointers to finish with nine points. Steward also made three three-pointers and finished with 13 points.

Steward is playing 30 minutes a game for the Blue Devils. He’s averaging 13.4 points, four rebounds, three assists and one steal a game. He scored 24 points on 4-of-9 shooting from beyond the arc in his Duke debut, a 81-71 win over Coppin State.

Miller started with a bang. He scored 28 in his debut against North Carolina A&T, followed it up with 15 points in a win over Chicago State and is averaging 11.8 points and 2.2 rebounds a game in 29 minutes of action. More importantly, he’s given a highly-ranked Illinois team with huge expectations exactly what it needed: perimeter shooting.

When looking at the big picture, it’s clear Steward and Miller have produced the most of the current crop of freshmen from Illinois. And while the story may be about the lack of overall early production at the college level out of the Class of 2020, there are a few others who have had their moments.

St. Viator product Connor Kochera, a 6-3 scoring guard who is playing at William & Mary, made a big opening splash in his first college game. He led the Tribe with 19 points on 6-of-9 shooting in a 86-78 loss to Old Dominion. But Covid has shut down William & Mary basketball for two weeks in December.

Following a stellar career at Morgan Park, Marcus Watson is playing 30 minutes a game and leading Western Illinois in assists and steals.

While the 5-10 point guard’s scoring averaged is modest at 6.3 points a game, he’s chipping in with 3.3 rebounds, 4.3 assists and two steals a game through the first three games of the season.

Transactions: Illinois preps in the pros

West Chicago’s John Konchar signed a four-year contract with the Memphis Grizzlies for $9 million.

Meyers Leonard, who led Robinson to a state championship and played two years at Illinois, will remain with the Miami Heat. The 7-footer signed a two-year deal for $20 million.

Sterling Brown, the former Proviso East star, signed a one-year contract with the Houston Rockets for $1,678,854 in late November.

Big man Jahlil Okafor from Young signed a two-year contract with the Detroit Pistons. Terms of the deal have not been announced.

Benet’s Frank Kaminski inked a one-year contract with the Sacramento Kings.

The biggest winner was Rockford Auburn’s Fred Van Vleet, who re-signed with the Toronto Raptors for four years and $85 million.

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The Chicago Bears need Ted Phillips to go after the 2020 season is finally over.

Ted Phillips has been the President and CEO of the Chicago Bears for a long time now. He has been with the organization for even longer as he joined it in 1984. Things were well with the organization when he first got there but things haven’t been great in recent memory. In fact, since he took over as President, other than a few one-off years they have been bad. There are a couple of division titles and one Super Bowl appearance but that is it.

This is one of the most laughable organizations in all of the sports if we are being honest with ourselves. They hire bad general manager after bad general manager, bad coach after bad coach, and have bad quarterback after back quarterback. When Jay Cutler is the greatest quarterback in the history of your franchise, things are really bad.

It is time to start giving Ted Phillips some blame for these things. He is in charge of a lot of things and a lot of bad has come while he has been here. He deserves to go just as much as Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy do right now for what has happened in 2020. They are a horrible football team and it shows Sunday after Sunday. It has been over a month since they’ve last won a football game after starting 5-1 and now all fans want is for them to go 5-11.

The Bears might get the easy way out if Phillips “retires” but that would be fine. You don’t quite get the satisfaction of someone being fired for being bad at their job but the thing that truly matters is the Chicago Bears getting better. If he “retires”, that should lead to some change for the organization. You don’t have to be confident at this point that they will hire the right people but there is a better chance of things improving if they make a big move.

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The best candidate for a job like this is someone who is awesome at finding football people. Managing people and putting them in a position to succeed is the key to running a business. The next president needs to find a good GM who is a football person so they can find the right coach and draft the right quarterback. That hasn’t been something the Bears have been able to do and need to start doing.

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Chicago Bears (Photo by Quinn Harris/Getty Images)

In a hopefully post-Matt Nagy era, the Chicago Bears renovate the offense in our latest mock draft.

Those are some big words: “Post-Matt Nagy era.” If the Chicago Bears are going to make drastic changes this offseason (and many believe they will) then Nagy is surely one foot out the door as we speak. No matter what the front office and ownership are (or aren’t) telling him, it’s hard to see a world where Nagy survives this free-fall of a season after seeing the Bears once atop the division at 5-1.

Big change — that’s what we’re looking for. That’s what fans desire at the moment. What they’ve been doing isn’t working. What Nagy, Chuck Pagano and the entire coaching staff isn’t working. Heck, what Ryan Pace is doing and has done… isn’t working.

Is it time to clean house? It might be. At the moment, the Bears have gone from one of the best record in football to picking at no. 13 overall in the 2021 NFL Draft. It’s been one heck of a collapse for these Bears, and now fans have turned their attention to the offseason.

In fact, we’ve been there for a couple of weeks now; most of us, at least.

The Bears will have seven picks in next year’s draft, without a pick in the fourth round and two picks coming in the sixth. For the first time in what feels like eternity, Chicago will have a first, second and third rounder to work with.

It’s time to reinvent the offense. From quarterback to offensive line, and maybe even a couple other spots here and there, the offense needs to be rebuilt. In our latest mock draft, we used The Draft Network’s mock draft machine and projections to run through all seven of the Bears’ picks, and that’s exactly what we did. The brand-new Bears offense will emerge before your eyes.

Next: Round 1, Pick 13

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