By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
By the time that Shelby Miller got the baton in the 4xmile at the Mercer County Relays on Saturday, her job simply was to maintain West Windsor-Plainsboro South’s giant lead.
Miller, however, wants to do more than maintain.
Miller is already an impact runner for the Pirate girls, but the sophomore is expecting improvement in her second year in the program, and the sooner the better.
”Sometimes you get in a rut,” Miller said. “You’re working so hard and you want to see results. I’m kind of still waiting for that this year. Hopefully it’ll come during the spring.”
Due to inclement weather, Miller and the Pirates haven’t had many dual meets to test themselves yet, but they did blossom at the Mercer County Relays. Miller was part of one of the two WW-P South relays to win when she ran the second leg of the 4xmile. South senior Katie Kellner led off, Miller ran second, Ting Ting Zhou was third and Caroline Kellner anchored for the gold.
”Katie had a great lead,” Miller said. “She put us in great position. We had at least a 200-meter lead.
”You just have to keep going. Us middle two people, we’re maintaining. The Kellners got us in good position and brought us home.”
The Pirates also won the 4×400 relay while WW-P North won the 4×800 for the other local winner. It was WW-P South’s balance in finishing highly across the board that impressed onlookers.
”Last year, we won the relay meet,” said Pirates head coach Todd Smith. “We were very competitive in the jumps. That’s the one thing we’re missing with Sammy (Howell) graduating, the truly competitive field events girl. We have some girls trying to fill the holes. It’s encouraging because they’re extremely young. We have a great group of seniors, but also we also have great juniors and sophomores and freshmen. Depth is good. We try to build off what we have each year.”
The WW-P North boys won four events, dominating the distance with wins in the 4×800, 4xmile and distance medley. The Knights also captured the shot put relay.
The Pirate girls have strengths in the sprints, hurdles, distance and the throws. Among the distance runners is Miller, who has bought into the program fully and would like to see the rewards for her work before she is thrust into a leadership role in the coming years. She spent her spring break thousands of miles away singing in Austria, but running was never far from her thoughts.
”I got out for a little bit of a tempo run and a little bit of some other runs,” she said. “When you have a great coach like (distance coach Kurt) Wayton coaching, it’s hard to replace them. I woke up at 6 o’clock so I would get my run in.”
Miller wasn’t the only one from the Pirates program to make the eight-day trip with the school’s choir and orchestra nor the only one to work out, but her persistence paid off when she returned to the relays meet.
”We’ve only had one dual meet,” Miller said. “It’s only our second time to run competitively outside of a scrimmage against Montgomery. It was good. They all came back from spring break and a lot of the team went away, so it was good to get the rust off them today.”
In addition to the 4xmile, Miller also ran the 4×800 in which the Pirates finished fourth. She plans to keep her focus on the mile and 800 — nothing longer this year or any time in the foreseeable future.
”My whole goal for my track career is to not run the two-mile,” Miller said. “I’ve been doing good so far. I like to focus on the 800 and the mile.
”I do love cross country, but if I’m going to go the longer distance, I’d rather be out on a course rather than running in circles.”
Miller also doesn’t want to be running in circles as a competitor. She wants to continue to move forward, and has the tools.
”She works hard every day in practice,” Smith said. “She’s another kid who can come out and hammer out really decent meets. She helps a lot in dual meets. Unfortunately, she got the baton in not a very competitive situation and found herself running by herself. But she’s a smart kid. She has a lot of potential. When they have those things — they’re smart and they work hard — they’re going to be good runners.”
Miller likes to be challenged. She appreciated the 4×800 race Saturday that she ran lead-off leg because it was the more competitive of her two events. The Pirates would have liked to finish higher in the race and better across the board, but that’s motivation for their coming meets, beginning with today’s meet against Hightstown.
”We just kind of realized we need to work a little harder,” Miller said. “We weren’t satisfied. We’re hungry for more. We want to do better. I think we will. (Saturday) made us realize the potential we have, and we just have to go after it.”
Shelby Miller intends to do that this season, even before the baton of leadership comes her way.

