CUMBERLAND — Allegany High School’s Avery Miller has been named area girls track and field Player of the Year — capping one of the most remarkable high school careers in Maryland track history.
The newly created All-Area track awards are selected using season-best times and distances in events.
Athletes who have the top mark in the area for an event are considered All-Area first team, and those who finish second are second-team All-Area.
The Player of the Year is awarded to the athlete who tops the most events.
If there is a tie for Player of the Year, the tiebreaker gives the nod to the athlete with the most state championships in that season.
Miller’s 14 career individual state titles is an all-time Maryland high school record.
Miller, who is signed to Penn State University, dominated the 2025 outdoor season, leading the area in nine of the 14 individual events and leading three of the region’s top relay teams.
She rewrote the script in her final year, winning four state championships — discus, triple jump, 300m hurdles and 800m — despite three of those events being brand-new to her.
A natural sprinter, Miller retooled her focus following a hamstring injury suffered at the Morgantown invitational on April 5.
The injury sidelined her from running events for over three weeks and was among the reasons she and her coaches decided to forgo the sprint events she was best known for (100m, 200m, 400m) heading into the state championship meet.
Picking up the discus for the first time midway through the season, the 300m hurdles in early spring and the triple jump for the first time at the region championships, Miller was able to add state championships in all three events plus the 800m.
It was a remarkable accomplishment for both Miller and her coaches George Brown (800m), Katie Rice (triple jump), Dave Lancaster (discus) and Jade Bean (hurdles).
Miller’s excellence drew national recruiting attention.
By the start of her senior year, she was being courted by 37 Power Four schools and received home visits from NC State, Indiana and Minnesota.
She had shut down recruiting for basketball and soccer, where she was receiving Division I interest from several schools including Pitt, Duquesne, Syracuse and Robert Morris, among others.
By the weekend of Sept. 14, she was seriously considering an offer from Big 10 champion Minnesota but decided to take one more visit to Penn State three days later.
Miller had passed on a major recruiting weekend that included the Penn State vs. Ohio State football game that conflicted with an Allegany girls soccer match.
The following day, Miller verbally committed to the Nittany Lions — canceling official visits to Indiana, NC State, SMU and others.
At Penn State, Miller will largely focus on the heptathlon where she is a two-time high school national champion and was the second-ranked American heptathlete in the class of 2025.
The heptathlon is a two-day event that includes the 100m hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200m, long jump, javelin throw and 800m.
Her long-term goals under Penn State head coach Jon Gondak and heptathlon coach Fritz Spence include the United States Olympic Trials in 2028.