Double Duty Success At Two Sports Keeps Miller Hopping

When the U-16 River City Rivals became Spokane’s first high school-age national fastpitch softball tournament qualifier, no one was more surprised than the players themselves.

“We were surprised, we were excited, we were ecstatic,” said one of them, Jaime Miller. “It was cool.”

It also complicated Miller’s life.

She not only plays outfield and back-up catcher for the Rivals, but is also one of University High School’s top distance runners.

Last weekend she raced from U-Hi’s team cross country camp at White Pass near Yakima, to Boise where the Rivals were completing their improbable run through the loser’s bracket to finish third in regionals.

The Rivals had lost their first game of the tournament and trailed by 10 runs after an inning of their second before rallying to win six straight.

The top-three finish earned them a trip to Chattanooga, Tenn. They will fly to Tennessee from Seattle on Tuesday.

Miller will take a break from cross country training to go along.

“It wasn’t a conflict at all up until now,” said Miller. “I’d played softball a long time, started running and liked it. I thought I’d do both.”

She has been able to juggle four sports by running cross country and track in high school, playing volleyball and softball on club teams between school seasons.

Miller this year joined the Rivals, a team made up of girls from the Valley, Spokane and Colville.

“She absolutely has the talent to play softball,” said her coach, Ken VanBuskirk. “We use her in the outfield and as backup catcher and when we need speed on the bases. She has the ability to get to the ball and has a good arm. She’s invaluable to us.”

Miller will be invaluable to U-Hi, too. In her first year of cross country last year she was a member of fourthplace state finishing team. In the spring she ran 2:18.88 to qualify for regionals in the 800. It is a sport she sees as her future.

“I just went out for track in seventh grade, liked running and kept doing it. I didn’t get into it until my sophomore year,” said Miller. “When I talk about softball, (University coach Steve Llewellyn) just gives me looks.”

Winning two state championships in bicycle moto-cross racing gave Miller her strong legs. She played youth softball, said her mother Cheryl, because she ran out of girls BMX competition and racing against boys wasn’t fun.

Junior high softball is played in the fall so she could run track in spring. Miller was all-league 400 meter champion in the eighth grade.

Miller ran track at U-Hi beginning her freshman year, but didn’t turn out for cross country until last season. She wanted to play ninth grade softball at Bowdish Junior High.

“I ran in the summer but quit cross country to play softball because we had the best team in league and wanted to try and win it,” she said.

Bowdish did win the championship, losing just once.

This summer Miller would train for cross country in the mornings and play games twice a week at night. Her only conflict was when she missed a game to run the Cherry Picker’s Trot at Green Bluff.

The River City Rivals head for Tennessee with a record of 40-11.

Other Valley members are Courtney Nollmeyer and Megan Mertens from University and Teresa Palmer, a student at Gonzaga Prep.

Nollmeyer, said Van Buskirk, “I don’t think has missed two innings of first base in three years. She does an excellent job.”

Mertens, who played this year with a repaired broken hand when the Rivals were short-handed, enabled them to win a tournament in Walla Walla and the Spokane Fastpitch Metro Tournament when they would have otherwise forfeited.

Because the injury isn’t fully healed, she won’t play in nationals.

Palmer, who played in league games only until regionals, where she batted .500, will.

The tournament, said VanBuskirk, “for softball players is maybe a once in a lifetime thing. Our goal is to play as well as we can and win as many games as we can. If we’re in there somewhere fine, if not, I feel we’ve had a successful season.”

Jaime Miller agrees. She would play softball and run track for as long as she could, Miller said.

But if she had to make a choice and her softball career ends this summer, it will happen as she envisioned it, at the top of her sport.

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