Soccer, Basketball, Lacrosse
Favorite athlete: My favorite athlete has always been and will always be Julie Ertz. Playing soccer growing up and seeing her work ethic has always inspired me. Also, she married an Eagles player which was a plus.
Favorite team: My favorite team is the Eagles. I have always had an attachment to them because both of my parents grew up in Philly, and I have looked up to them even though this season was rough.
Favorite memory competing in sports: My favorite moment was definitely during my sophomore versus North Penn when I made a clutch foul shot to win the game. It was the first time I felt I had a role on the team and felt wanted. That was the game I realized I could have an impact on the team.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: It’s gonna sound funny but it was actually when I tore my meniscus. I wish I had a cool story to tell everyone, but I don’t. I simply was just trying to get up. It maybe wasn’t as embarrassing in the moment, but when I tell the story I get more laughs than when I tell a joke. And people still make fun of me til this day.
Music on my playlist: I love listening to R&B because that is what I grew up on in the car.
Future plans: I plan to go to a four-year college to study health sciences and eventually become a pediatric physician assistant.
Words to live by: “Life is for enjoying, not enduring.”
One goal before turning 30: I would love to learn to play the piano and learn sign language.
One thing people don’t know about me: I love to paint, draw and bake, and I’m actually really good at it. I just don’t have much time for it.
By Mary Jane Souder
Every basketball team needs a Peyton Miller.
No, the Bensalem senior doesn’t score a lot of points. As a matter of fact, Miller’s name doesn’t always show up in the box score. And, no, she doesn’t stuff a stat sheet.
“She does all the uncool things in basketball,” Bensalem coach Steve Johnson said of his senior center.
And what exactly are the “uncool things” in basketball? The Owls’ coach explains.
“She communicates on defense, she boxes out, and she does everything that no one really gets credit for and wants to do, and she does it really well,” Johnson said. “She’s the type of kid – she’s never going to be in the box score scoring 20 points a game, 15 points a game.
“After a game, if we win and she has zero points, she’s just as happy as if she would have scored 6-8 points. She’s just a total team player. It’s never about herself. We preach ‘we not me.’ She’s the true definition of we not me.”
Miller understands her role on an Owls’ squad that has already equaled last year’s eight-win total with nine games still remaining on the schedule.
“I’ve always been the hustle player,” the two-year captain said. “I’ve always been the defender that rather helped the team out on one side than being the hero that gets all the credit for it.
“I really feel I have taken my role as the positive person on the court that will always be there to help out anyone. Even if we’re not scoring on offense, then we’re going to play some defense. I know I’m not going to be the person that scored 10-20 points a game, and that’s all right.”
It’s pretty much the same story in soccer where the senior captain volunteered to sacrifice her playing time on the Owls’ Senior Night.
“Peyton came up to me and said, ‘Coach, I just want to win, I don’t care if I go in,’” Bensalem coach Bob Crawford said. “I said, ‘Peyton, you’re one of the girls I want on the field,’ but how many kids are going to give up playing time in one of their last few games? That’s how quality of a girl Peyton is – she’s so, so, selfless. She always, always put the team first.
“When she’s on the field, it calmed other girls down. Her heart is always in the right place – she’s always trying to help the person next to her.”
Miller was poised to be a varsity contributor in both sports last year but lost both seasons to an injury. She was missed.
“We struggled on the defensive end a little bit last year,” Johnson said. “I think she would have made our team a lot better.”
In a testament to her leadership abilities, Miller was named a captain of the basketball team her junior year despite the fact that she did not play one minute. This winter, she is co-captain with North Carolina AT&T commit Amber Howard.
“Amber’s more a lead by example,” Johnson said. “And Peyton is more vocal. She’s always on time for everything.
“I can almost guarantee she has a 4.0 GPA or close to it (Miller has a 3.9 GPA), she’s involved in countless clubs in school. She’s somebody that all the teachers and – if you talked to her lacrosse or soccer coach, everyone has positive things to say about Peyton.”
A three-sport athlete, Miller was a captain of the soccer team last fall, she is a two-year captain in basketball and will be a two-year captain of the lacrosse team. If you’re counting, that’s five seasons as a captain in her final two years of high school.
“Part of being a captain and one of the things I do – I love welcoming people, I love making people feel comfortable because I know when I was a freshman or even a sophomore, I didn’t feel very comfortable sometimes because they didn’t talk to me, and I don’t want to push that on other people,” Miller said. “I want to be remembered as a senior that’s nice to freshmen, nice to sophomores, nice to the kids that didn’t play. I really feel like me being welcoming is also going to lead them to be a better team in the future. They’ll see that and want to do the same thing.”
The journey
Inspired by her sister Sydney, who is five years her senior, Peyton has been competing in sports for as long as she can remember.
“My sister started playing sports before I did,” Peyton said. “I started playing sports pretty much right out of the womb.”
By the age of three, Miller was playing soccer. Basketball came later.
“My dad wanted me to get into other sports, so he put me into basketball when I was in fourth grade,” she said. “I did the PAL league - which was a police-run league - for a summer, and in fifth grade, I started doing a league in Valley AA.”
From there, it was on to playing for Bensalem Chargers AAU.
“I’m still best friends with everyone from that team pretty much, which is pretty cool,” said Miller, who went on to compete with the Rebels and most recently Heat Hoops on the AAU circuit.
Soccer was actually Miller’s sport of choice until she was in eighth grade.
“Soccer was what my sister played, so I looked up to her,” she said of Sydney, who went on to play at Shippensburg University.
A swing player for the basketball team with limited varsity time as a freshman, Miller also played swing as a sophomore but saw considerably more varsity time.
Then came the injury in the final game of her AAU season in July after her sophomore year that temporarily derailed Miller’s high school career.
“I got the ball the last couple of seconds of the game,” she said. “We were winning, so I was just holding the ball, and the girls pushed me over because she was mad, and when I tried to get back up, I twisted my knee somehow and had to go to the hospital.”
The injury was diagnosed as a torn meniscus, and Miller immediately began physical therapy with the hopes that it would be resolved. It wasn’t.
“I thought I wouldn’t need surgery,” Miller said. “I did physical therapy until Sept. 1 when I had surgery – it was definitely devastating.
“I was planning on coming back and playing more varsity than I did the year before. I was working out every single day, getting better, and the injury took me out.”
Miller was sidelined from July to March, receiving clearance March 19 to return to action.
A captain of the basketball team despite being sidelined, Miller was at every practice, every game.
“She didn’t miss a thing,” Johnson said.
“I love the sport of basketball,” Miller said. “I knew I had a passion for it and being on the sidelines and not being able to help my teammates – especially because we had a rougher season last year - made me feel out of control.”
This year, Miller returned to the court.
“Oh, my goodness, it feels so great to be back because last year I feel as though I put all the work in right before the season, and then I got injured,” she said. “It made feel – what was all this for? But I put in all the work I could this summer, and it’s really showing, which is nice to see.”
Miller’s contributions extend well beyond the court.
“I want her to take the freshmen and sophomores under her wing, and she does that,” Johnson said. “She’s constantly talking to the freshmen.
“We have a freshman big, Sydney Daut, who’s going to be a really, really good player for us the next three years, and Peyton’s constantly talking to her at practice – what she can do here, what she can do in this situation.
“She’s just a great leader. I don’t think we’d be where we are now if it wasn’t for Peyton.”
This spring, Miller will return to the lacrosse field where she is a four-year starter and two-year captain for an Owls’ squad that does not boast the experience of its opponents.
“The lacrosse program at my school only started three years before I got to high school,” Miller said. “My sister played when she was in high school, and then I started playing because I saw how she enjoyed having a sport that wasn’t the most serious sport, so I took a chance my freshman year.”
Crawford can attest to the fact that Miller brings the same positive leadership to the lacrosse field that she did to the soccer pitch.
“My younger daughter, Rachel, plays lacrosse with her, and she absolutely loves the guidance that she gives,” the Owls’ soccer coach said. “If something’s not going right, she has no problem calling the team in and saying, ‘Come on girls, let’s do it.’ She’s always positive.
“Every time she is on the soccer field – or any field – she just gives it everything she’s got. She gives it 100 percent, she’s there for her team, she’s a leader. In Rachel’s freshman year, Peyton would always be there to guide her, and Rachel just loved it. I think that makes Peyton happier than anything – being able to help the person next to her.”
Looking ahead
Where Miller will be next year this time is uncertain.
“I’ve been looking more into going to bigger schools and playing club sports there just because I know my body – I’ve been going through a lot of injuries, and I know my body wouldn’t really be able to handle a collegiate sport, so I’d rather take that time to focus on my academics because I know what I want to do with my life,” Miller said.
The Bensalem senior has her sights set on becoming a pediatric physician assistant.
“I’ve always been the person – my mother calls me a nurse when she’s sick,” she said. “I’ve always been a person to help other people. I think helping other people comes with being a health worker.”
An excellent student with a course load of honors and AP classes, Miller has been a member of the National Honor Society since her sophomore year. She is involved in Owls Television Network.
“Every chance I get – I’m filming the boys’ games, I’m filming other teams,” she said.
Miller is also editor of the school yearbook and is a member of Owls Ambassadors.
Miller’s number one college choice is Syracuse, and listening to her coaches tell it – the school that lands the Bensalem senior will be fortunate.
“Her sense of morals - Peyton is always going to do the right thing,” Crawford said. “She doesn’t need the spotlight. Everyone is so worried about themselves, and to have a kid that’s more worried about the people around them and winning, it speaks to their upbringing. I have been at Bensalem five or six years and have always had her family in the program. Both daughters are amazing kids. That family is a great family.
“Last year when she was injured, she was on the sidelines at practice, and she was watching kids not practice hard. She said, ‘Coach, I’m so embarrassed that we would practice that way.’ She’s one of a kind, she cares so much. She’s definitely going to be missed in many different ways.”
Miller is one of four seniors on this year’s basketball squad.
“Peyton, Amber (Howard), Mikayla (Donahue) and Ashley (Tarr) - we’re going to miss each senior for something different,” Johnson said. “Peyton’s impact is going to last into the next few years. She’s kind of mentoring Sydney, she’s really close with our sophomores and freshmen, and I think that’s going to translate when they’re juniors and seniors.
“It’s going to be the trickle-down effect. Sydney in four years is going to have a freshman that’s going to be a great team player because of Sydney, and Sydney’s a great team player because of the mentorship from Peyton. I really can’t say enough good things about her. Every coach wants a Peyton Miller.”
