The little girl who couldn’t sit still is now a young lady who only has to wait a few more months to get started with her college career.

FC Bucks standout attacking player Madlyn Evans recently signed her National Letter of Intent with 11-time defending Big Ten champions Penn State. Evans ended up choosing Erica Walsh’s Nittany Lions over Virginia, having been sold on the program, school and team.

“They kind of reminded me of my club team,” Evans said. “I liked the team chemistry and the school is offering a lot of opportunities I’m looking forward to.”

In a school press release about the signing class, Walsh praised Evans’ work ethic.

“(She’s) one of the best and most hard-working players in the country,” she said. “We anticipate her helping us in the midfield but she can play anywhere on the field and will be an amazing asset to our group."

Evans refers to work rate as well in describing herself, but the player also has a very fast speed of play and creativity in the middle of the field. She credits her club coach at Bucks, Ed Leigh, with helping develop this.

“He taught me everything,” she said of Leigh. “He forces us to try to play fast. We’ve worked on a lot of skill and since then picked up how to play quick and be creative and use those skills.”

Evans went to Bucks at the U13 age group after having played on boys’ teams as long as she could. Her mother Liz remembers Madlyn needing an athletic outlet.

“She was always a kid who just couldn’t sit still,” she said. “She’s always been competitive and she could hang with the boys when it came to playing. Even in our area (suburban Philadelphia) it was hard to get enough girls players to field a whole team, so she ended playing on boys’ teams

Now the soft-spoken Madlyn practices with her club twice a week and spends personal time in the family yard working on footskills nearly every day the weather allows. She’s also using another sport to keep in shape.

“I like to keep my speed up and I found that running track has helped me make that a stronger part of my game,” she said. “It keeps me in shape too.”

Evans runs the 800 and 1,500 meters, but said soccer is definitely sport number one for her.

Her long-term hopes are to make a national pool; she has been a part of regional and national youth pools for much of her career. Some of her teammates with U.S. Youth Soccer’s Region I ODP have included Kayla Eckman, Stephanie Carpenter, Jenna Richmond, Amber Brooks and Julia Roberts.