evin McGrath went to bed on a Tuesday night with a headache and flu-like symptoms she'd had countless times before.

The most pressing thing on her mind that night last year was Wednesday's basketball game, the start of the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League playoffs. Devin's Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (Coraopolis, Pa.) squad entered the postseason on a 20-game winning streak and as the No. 1 seed.

The team's leading scorer as a junior and an unparalleled competitor, this was going to be her time.

"Devin was so excited about those playoffs," OLSH sixth-year girls' basketball coach Don Eckerle says. "She put her heart into helping the team get there."

So she drifted off to sleep hoping to feel better by game time.

The next thing she knew, it was Sunday.

When Bea McGrath tried to wake her daughter on Wednesday morning, Devin was unresponsive. She wasn't moving, and when her eyes opened, they were rolled back in her head.

In a panic, Bea called for an ambulance, which rushed Devin to a local hospital. A few hours later, with doctors still unsure what was afflicting her, Devin was moved to Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. That night, she was put into an induced coma.

Things took a turn for the worse the next day and doctors, who thought she had meningitis, weren't sure if Devin would live.

"Thursday was when she got really bad," Bea says. "It was very much touch and go."

Somehow, Devin pulled through and gradually improved, coming out of the coma Sunday night.

Complications arose when some medication gave her excruciating pancreatitis, but she fought through it using her trademark toughness. "She didn't complain or cry once,"Bea says. That doesn't mean her rehab was easy.

"I couldn't walk 10 feet," says Devin, who was also a volleyball and softball star at OLSH. "Just going up the stairs was hard."

Eventually she was diagnosed with meningoencephalitis, a rare infection of the brain and its surrounding membranes. After entering the hospital in mid-February, Devin was told she'd be there for three to six months, but she went home in just more than four weeks.

"I don't like it when people tell me I can't do something or something won't happen," Devin says.

While recovering in the hospital, Devin followed her team closely as OLSH advanced to the WPIAL Class AA finals despite missing its best player.

"Devin went from our physical presence on the court to our inspiration," Eckerle says. Devin received permission to leave the hospital for two hours and attend the championship game. As she appeared in a wheelchair, the OLSH student section went crazy and chanted her name.

During a timeout, her teammates came over and mobbed her.

The Chargers lost, but Devin got her silver medal in person.

Devin returned to school at the end of March and was all anyone could talk about.

"I never got so many hugs in my life," she says. "I don't think we got anything done in any of my classes that day."

She just wanted things to get back to normal, though. So Devin immediately set her mind to playing softball, even if she was only at about 60 percent. She wasn't thrilled with her stats but refused to use her illness as an excuse.

Everyone else was amazed she was even playing.

"Any other kid wouldn't have played that softball season," says Mike McDonald, OLSH's volleyball coach and assistant athletic director. "That's the difference between her and everybody else."

After some long hours of physical therapy last summer, Devin returned to school for her senior year as the same versatile sports star she had been before getting sick.

She started with a stellar volleyball season in the fall, earning Class A All-State honors. At press time, she was leading the basketball team in scoring at 22 points per game. And with spring approaching, softball season is right around the corner.

"I missed the best part of the year last year," Devin says, "so I'm looking to finish senior year really strong."

Ryan Canner-O'Mealy covers high school sports for ESPN RISE.