Seeing her way to a win
Watch the eyes.
They’re what you notice first when you watch Jennesa Miller play basketball for Freeman High. The speed, the jump shot, the determination on the boards – you see that, too. But it’s the intensity of the senior wing’s gaze that gets your attention.
They show a passion for the game mixed with a sense that she sees more of what’s going on than most.
“I do think I have a good court sense,” she said. “I’m able to feel what’s going on, feel the person I’m defending, even if I’m not looking right at them.”
But the eyes tell you more than that about the way Miller plays.
“I get really into the game and I don’t like to show emotion a lot,” Miller joked with a surprisingly easy laugh from such a serious player. “I find that if I get mad about something, it’s just easier to keep a straight face and not let anyone know. It’s better for the team all around. It’s just kind of my game face.
“I do have a serious mindset when I’m playing.”
That serious mindset showed itself when Miller was tapped as a last-minute starter in her first state tournament game as a sophomore.
“Kayla Floyd got sick, and I had to start,” she remembered. “That was the worst case of cotton-mouth I’ve ever had. She was there for the walk-through, ready to start the game. And then she got sick, and coach said ‘OK, Jennesa, you’re starting.’
“With that group, I was able to get in there and play.”
Miller was brought up to the varsity halfway through her freshman season and saw playing time immediately.
“It was really nerve-wracking because that was a talented group of girls,” Miller said. “But at the same time, it was a really fun atmosphere to be part of.”
Veteran teammates like Melissa Baker, Ashley Taylor and Jessie DePell all made sure Miller was comfortable.
“Melissa Baker was always there to encourage me,” she said. “If I got nervous out there, she was right there to calm me down. There was a bunch of other girls who were the same way.”
As a senior, Miller said she takes a page from the lessons those players taught her.
“Being able to be a leader on the floor as well as a best friend off the floor – that’s the key,” Miller said. “Now I know what a player like (freshman) Megan Morgan is going through. I went through the same thing that she’s going through now – I came up to the varsity halfway through my freshman year, too.”
Miller said her older teammates forced her to lift her game to keep up.
“I was playing against them every day in practice,” she said. “I had to get better in order to keep up with them. By the time it came to play the games, it was a piece of cake compared to the level we had in practice. It made me a much better player.”
After four years on the Freeman varsity and two trips to the state Class 1A state tournament, Miller has seen quite a bit, from the No. 1 ranked team that reached the tourney finals before losing her sophomore year, to the team that entered this weekend’s action with a 10-2 record, to losing only to Brewster and Post Falls.
Last year Miller was a 5-foot-10 point guard. This year, coach Matt Gregg was determined to get the lanky guard on a wing, the better to take advantage of her ability to score.
Junior Ashley Carrel stepped in at point guard.
Miller responded with 24 points in each of the Scotties first two games on a wing and settled in to a comfortable 15-points-per game average since.
“I’m a lot more comfortable on the wing,” she said. “I’m able to get out and run more and use my speed up and down the court. I can see things more clearly from the wing and spot openings and mismatches, and it’s a lot easier for me to crash the boards.”
Miller said she’s helping establish a winning tradition of girls basketball at Freeman, a school that already enjoys that tradition with its boys game.
“The girls have just started to pick up that tradition the past few years,” she said. “It’s a great place to play basketball. It really is.”