By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
In its 39th year of honoring the nation’s most elite high school athletes, Gatorade has announced Seaman's Ryin Miller as the 2023-24 Gatorade Kansas Girls Track & Field Player of the Year.
Seaman star Ryin Miller has been named the Gatorade Kansas girls track and field athlete of the year for the 2023-2024 school year. [Photo by Jesse Bruner/Special to TSN]
Miller is the first Gatorade Kansas Girls Track & Field Player of the Year to be chosen from Seaman.
The award, which celebrates the nation’s top high school athletes for excellence on the field, in the classroom and in the community, distinguishes Miller as Kansas’ best high school girls track & field athlete.
Miller, who recently completed her sophomore season, won Class 5A titles in the 800 and 1,600-meter runs and finished second in the 3,200 in the state meet at Wichita's Cessna Stadium, leading the Vikings to a fourth-place finish as a team.
Miller ranked among the nation’s top five sophomores nationally in the 1,500 and 3,200 this spring and her personal-best times in the 1500 (4 minutes, 26.58), the 3,200 (10:13.97) and the 800 (2:10.25) all rank in the top three in state history.
“Ryin Miller became the Heartland’s fastest-rising talent over the last 12 months, having made the successful transition from the soccer pitch to the track oval,” said Rich Gonzalez, editor for PrepCalTrack.com. “This spring, she rocketed up the state’s all-time distance lists with head-turning momentum. Also a standout with the school’s basketball and cross-country programs, she built up stamina across the spectrum of sports, which helped make her an exceptional newcomer on the national scene.”
Miller posted a third-place finish in the 5A cross country meet last fall and helped lead the Vikings to the state quarterfinals in soccer.
A member of her school’s Key Club, Miller has volunteered locally helping to organize elementary school pen pal programs and Easter Egg hunts in addition to serving as a guest reader at elementary schools.
She has also donated her time as an assistant youth soccer coach as well as by assisting at various sports tournaments and camps while maintaining a weighted 4.15 grade point average in the classroom.
The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one winner in the District of Columbia and each of the 50 states that sanction high school football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, and boys and girls track & field, and awards one National Player of the Year in each sport.
The selection process is administered by the Gatorade Player of the Year Selection Committee, which leverages experts including coaches, scouts, media and others as sources to help evaluate and determine the state winners in each sport.
Miller joins recent Gatorade Kansas Girls Track & Field Players of the Year Chesney Peterson (2022-23 & 2021-22, Stanton County High School), Katelyn Fairchild (2020-21, Andale High School) and Dhakiya Blake (2019-20, Leavenworth High School), among the state’s list of former award winners.
