Jalaya Miller is ITG Next’s 2025 Tift County High School Female Athlete of the Year, presented by Georgia Sports Medicine.
Miller has just wrapped up a successful four-year career with the Lady Blue Devils basketball program, and longtime Tift County girls basketball head coach Julie Conner-Johnson is sad to see her leave.
“Jalaya did everything for our team during her time here at Tift County,” Conner-Johnson said.
That’s not just typical coach speak either.
Miller was voted the 2024 Offensive Player of the Year for Region 1-6A by region coaches, and she was poised to come back strong for her final high school season this past year.
According to Conner-Johnson, last summer during the offseason, Miller began experiencing lower leg pain. During a camp at Georgia Tech that June, Nell Fortner, the Georgia Tech women’s basketball head coach at the time, had the team trainers examine Miller, and she was diagnosed with a stress fracture that was the result of shin splints.
“Coach Fortner said then that there was no way Jalaya could keep playing, so we put her in a walking boot,” Conner-Johnson said.
That forced Miller to miss valuable playing time in AAU basketball and the early part of Tift County’s 2024-25 season.
Despite still being in pain, Miller returned to the team in mid-December and was a welcome addition to a team hit hard by injuries.
“We had four of our five starters go down to injury, and even though she (Miller) was not 100%, she really carried us,” Conner-Johnson said.
That was especially true when Tift County headed to Lowndes to take on the Vikettes, who were leading the region and were a Top 5 ranked team in Class 6A. Lowndes was 17-2 at the time and had defeated Tift County by 24 points when they met earlier in the season.
But in that Feb. 1 game, Miller played through the pain and led her Tift County team to a 57-55 upset win at Lowndes, coming up with a monster performance. Miller had 31 points, 11 rebounds, and four blocks in the game.
“Her pain tolerance had to be sky high,” Conner-Johnson said.
Miller finished out the season, then immediately went back into her walking boot to allow her stress fracture to heal.
Conner-Johnson said that despite a stellar high school career that saw Miller come within 11 points of 1,000 career points, she has decided not to attempt to play college basketball.
“Jalaya had a couple of college offers to continue playing basketball, but she told me that she just wants to be a student,” Conner-Johnson said.
“She is tough, tough, tough,” Conner-Johnson said about Miller.
Congratulations to Jalaya Miller, ITG Next’s 2025 Tift County High School Female Athlete of the Year, presented by Georgia Sports Medicine.
