Avery Miller Wins In The New Balance National Heptathlon Title

Avery Miller, a former All-High track standout, is currently a national champion.

At the New Balance Nationals held at Franklin Field in Philadelphia, the rising senior won the heptathlon with a score of 5,057, defeating Yuliya Maslouskaya, the U18 Belarus national champion.

With her points from the two-day competition, Miller would have finished sixth in the Atlantic Coast Conference championships, seventh in the SEC, fourth in the Big Ten, and eleventh in the Big 12.

“I can’t thank (Allegany track coach George) Brown enough,” Miller explained. “He has been organizing my daily workouts since the end of the state championship meet to get me ready for this. I felt like I was as strong in the seventh event as I was in the first.”

Miller’s projected score from her personal bests in the seven heptathlon events qualified her for the competition.

The 100-meter hurdles, long jump, shot put, 200-meter dash, 800-meter run, and high jump are among those events.

Each event is given a score out of 1,000 based on pre-established benchmarks.

Maslouskaya, who trains at the IMG Academy in Florida, was the clear favourite this week following her pentathlon victory in March, which was her New Balance Indoor national crown.

With a score of 4,992, the Belarussian finished well ahead of Sarah Dumas (4,825), a senior at Franklin High School in Massachusetts and a track recruit at the University of Pennsylvania.

As Miller keeps establishing herself as one of the greatest athletes to have ever played in Allegany County, major track programmes from Notre Dame, Colorado, North Carolina, and South Carolina have expressed interest in working with her.

“Avery’s training indicated that she could score 5,000 points her first time out, which is somewhat unheard of in the heptathlon, especially for someone in high school,” Brown explained.

“What an awesome way to not only represent herself and our community. On the national stage, where so many world-class athletes have competed at Franklin Field, home of the Penn Relays.”

After Day 1, Miller’s results in the hurdles, high jump, shot throw, and 200-meter sprint placed her in fifth place.

With a second-best long jump of 18′ 9.5″ to start Day 2, she moved up to fourth place. After that, Miller set a new personal record in the javelin with a throw of 120′, which was 43′ farther than her previous best and the second-best in the field.

“I have been working hard with my throws coach Nick Agoris,” Miller explained. “There is no way I could have thrown a 120 without him.”
Before her final event, the 800m, Javelin had put her in second place, behind Maslouskaya, who was the clear favourite.

Miller won the gold with a personal best time of 2:16.17.

“I was being told that I needed to beat her by 1.85 seconds to win it all,” the Camper explained. “When I got to the last turn I peaked over my shoulder, which you should never do, and saw she was about 15 yards behind me. I knew if I just sprinted the straightaway I had it.”

In the last two events of the first day, Miller easily won the 200 metres in 24.95 seconds and finished second in the shot put (34′ 9″).

Miller had a slow start, placing 12th out of 13 in the hurdles with a time of 16.22. She had only previously participated in the competition three times.

“I have a lot of work to do in hurdles,” she explained. “I have been working with coach (Jade) Bean and she has really helped me a lot, but there is definitely room for improvement.”

Even though her personal best of 5′ 0.5″ was a high jump, she placed 12th out of 13.

Later in the day, Miller recovered, and she took that momentum into Day 2, which allowed her to add a national championship to her already long list of achievements.

Miller became the only female to win the maximum four events twice in the 52-year history of the Maryland outdoor championships when she captured four individual Class 1A state medals in her junior year of outdoor track and field.

Her average margin of victory was 1.59 seconds as she set personal bests in all three running events: the 100m (12.03), 200m (24.65), 400m (55.30), and long jump (18′ 10.5”). She also won by more than two feet in the long jump.

Miller has won ten individual outdoor track and field championships going into her senior year. Miller is the only person ahead of Kisha Jett of Hammond and Sally Glynn of Walter Johnson on the list of all-time career state titles.

As a senior, she will have an opportunity to outperform them.