No tears were coming down Amber Miller’s face, and by the time she was up off the floor and jogging toward the bench, clutching her bloody nose, her eyes didn’t even betray any signs of pain.
Miller was incidentally clocked in the face in a battle for a rebound during Emporia High’s 62-52 loss to Washburn Rural on Jan. 16, and she hustled off the court matter-of-factly, as if a little facial abuse is just part of the game. Not long after that, she was back on the floor with her nose plugged, ready to keep mixing it up if the situation called for it.
“I want to get in there, (and) I don’t want our team to get beat up,” Miller said. “If we get hurt, then they should get hurt, too.”
Not that Miller’s what anybody would call a bruiser. But the 5-foot-9 senior stepped into the Lady Spartans’ starting lineup at the two-guard spot three games ago primarily because she brings an element that coach Bill Nienstedt believes is sometimes lacking on his team: toughness.
That element of her game shows up in her knack for finding position for rebounds that could easily go to bigger, more athletic players. It shows up elsewhere, too — which is why during practice scrimmages, Nienstedt said, Miller’s team tends to win a lot.
“She does a lot of intangible things that are kind of hard to measure,” he said. “The ball doesn’t stick in her hands, she keeps it moving, she can knock down a shot. She’s not afraid to shoot it when she needs to shoot it — I think that’s a sign of toughness, also.”
Miller, who’s averaging 3.4 points per game, also adds versatility — she’s played significant time both in the frontcourt and the backcourt — and she’s a motivational teammate.
“I think whenever I’m out there, I’m trying my hardest,” she said, “and trying to help everybody else if they’re down a little bit, pick ’em up and try and win, too.”
Senior forward Hilary Heinrichs said Miller does a good job of it.
“She’s always there to tell you how good you’re doing,” Heinrichs said. “If we’re doing something bad, and it really is our fault, she’s gonna tell us that there’s some way that we’re gonna turn around, and it’s their fault, and we’re gonna make it better. ...
“She just has a good way of picking you up and telling you how good you really are, even if you aren’t. Sometimes, she even convinces you.”
On top of that, Heinrichs said, Miller’s fun to be around and is the Spartans’ source of “comic relief, whether she tries to be or not.”
“Sometimes, she’ll forget her practice shirt and wear the wrong socks, or just something that you just wouldn’t expect to see Amber in, she’ll come in to practice,” Heinrichs said. “... She’s the unexpected comic relief, I think.”
Emporia (6-4, 3-3 Centennial League) begins play in the annual Glacier’s Edge Tournament tonight when the Spartans take on Wichita North at 7 p.m. This year’s Glacier’s Edge field has some dangerous teams in it — the Spartans are seeded third behind Olathe East and Blue Valley. Centennial adversaries Manhattan and Seaman are the fourth and fifth seeds, followed by Wichita North, Leavenworth and Wyandotte. Improving the Spartans’ team toughness, both physical and mental, has been one focus of practice since Emporia last played 12 days ago, beating Leavenworth 67-43.
For physical toughness, it’s difficult to find a better example of a gamer’s mentality than Miller showed when her nose got bludgeoned against Rural. Her attitude upon leaving the game was, simply put, every coach’s dream.
“I just wanted to get back out there,” she said. “I didn’t care I got hurt. I just wanted to win really bad.”
“She was ready to go probably before we were ready to put her back in, actually,” Nienstedt said. “We were kind of worried about her. She’d taken a good shot, but she ends up putting some cotton up both nostrils, she was actually bleeding out of both of ’em. She broke that nose when she was a freshman, so it’s not like she hasn’t experienced that type of thing before.”
Nienstedt said Miller moving into the starting lineup has also helped Rachelle VanGundy and Ashley Leihsing, both of whom started in the two-guard spot earlier this year. VanGundy had seven 3-pointers and scored 23 points off the bench against Leavenworth.
“I think Rachelle is a good analyzer, and for her to be able to sit and watch for a couple of minutes, I think puts her back in a role that she was very successful in for us last year,” Nienstedt said. “It lets us also then use Ashley as a significant defensive substitute when we bring her off the bench. We just think that it’s improved our team chemistry overall.”
If Emporia defeats Wichita North, the Spartans will play at 8:30 p.m. Friday against the winner of the Blue Valley-Leavenworth game. With a loss, the Spartans would play at 5:30 p.m. Friday.
Emporia boys (6-6, 3-2) at Hayden (11-0, 5-0), Friday
Coming off two straight losses at the Ralph Miller Classic and four out of five overall, the Spartans will try to get back on track with an upset at undefeated Hayden. The Wildcats are coming off a championship in the Burlington Invitational last weekend.
Senior guard/forward Jacob Golden hasn’t yet gotten a final diagnosis on his injured knee, which kept him out of the Miller tournament and is likely to keep him out Friday. The knee is believed to have either a torn patella tendon or torn cartilage. Golden said he needs to make an appointment to get the knee examined, but had been hoping it would heal with rest.
“I tried running... but when I do, I can’t change directions very well,” Golden said Wednesday. “... Even walking on it, it bothers me. I walk with a limp still. Sometimes, I’ll plant my foot wrong or something, and it just tweaks, it twists it a little bit. It’s just awkward.”