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Maddigan Miller kicked off her collegiate career at Stanford this month, but not before the Bayport-Blue Point lacrosse great scooped up one last accolade for her magical run in high school with the Phantoms.
Miller has been named Inside Lacrosse magazine’s Women’s National High School Player of the Year. The award comes two months after the midfielder earned the Nike/USA Lacrosse Northeast Girls’ Player of the Year honors.
“Receiving this award is very humbling. There are several deserving athletes, so to be chosen is quite an honor,” said Miller, who helped lead Bayport-Blue Point to the Long Island championship last spring. “I feel extremely fortunate to be able to play a sport that has so much to offer.
“Being recognized with such an honor for loving what I do is very rewarding,” continued Miller, who was Newsday’s Long Island Player of the Year in 2021. “I was blessed to have my parents believing in me and nurturing my love of the game, to have had coaches who were dedicated to the game and passionate about teaching it, and to have had teammates that were unselfish and wanted to win.”
Miller, who is from Bayport, is the youngest of four Miller sisters who have gone on to play college lacrosse after excelling on the field for Bayport-Blue Point.
Kerrigan Miller played for USC for four years before using her extra year of eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic to play at North Carolina. Her Tar Heels this spring lost in the semi-finals of the NCAA championship tournament to eventual champion Boston College, who was led by Bayport-Blue Point sisters Courtney and Cassidy Weeks.
Delaney Miller played at East Carolina. And MacKenzie Miller played for Belmont Abbey.
Maddigan Miller, like most of the girls high school lacrosse players across the country, lost a year of high school lacrosse due to the pandemic. But she is hardly bitter over it.
“Looking back on my high school career, I wouldn’t change it for the world,” she said. “Our team at Bayport-Blue Point took what we had and ran with it. No opportunity was taken for granted.
“Whether it was joining a winter league, traveling to play in tournaments, or getting practices in outside in the winter because that’s all COVID protocol would allow, we were on top of it,” she continued. “I feel very lucky to have been apart of a program that was so dedicated to the sport.”
And while it’s nice to still be recognized for what she did in high school, Miller has turned the page.
“My new focus is my team here at Stanford University,” said Miller, who joined the Cardinal this fall along with her travel program teammate and fellow freshman Erin Schaefer of Saville. “They had a great season last year, as well, being Pac-12 champions. But the goals are higher here now.
Miller, whose cousin Ailish Kelly (also from Bayport-Blue Point) is a sophomore on Stanford, said fall ball practice started earlier this month.
“I think we have a lot to offer this year and the standards for our team are high,” she said. “Stanford is definitely no joke, athletically as well as academically, but it is totally worth it. There’s no place I would rather be. I’m looking forward to fall ball and the growth of the team, as well as all the new things Stanford will teach me as a player and person.”
Above photo: Twitter/USA Lacrosse Magazine
