Young breaks school all-time scoring record in semifinal win over Washington

RAPID CITY — Kerri Young has accomplished nearly everything a high school basketball player can.

The senior has won a state championship with the Mitchell Kernels girls’ basketball team in 2012, earned all-tournament, state and conference accolades and is the school’s all-time girls’ basketball leading scorer.

In her senior season, she crept up on another record and passed it Friday night.

Young became Mitchell’s all-time leading scorer, surpassing Mike Miller, who currently plays for the NBA’s Miami Heat.

Before Friday night’s game against Sioux Falls Washington in the semifinals of the Class AA state basketball tournament, Young needed three points to pass Miller’s mark of 1,743 — which he racked up from 1994 to 1998.

Young tied the record with a jumper just a minute and a half into the game. Young and Mike Miller shared the record for 18 minutes before Young stepped up to make another jumper in the third quarter, giving her the school’s all-time leading scorer honor.

“I had no idea that I would compare to his numbers or anything he’d accomplished,” Young said. “I never thought I could do that.”

Young finished Friday’s game with six points, moving her career-point total to 1,747.

The 6-foot forward, who has earned varsity-playing time since she was an eighth-grader and has started for the Kernels since her freshman year, said the records are something she can be proud of once she moves on to playing with South Dakota State University in the fall.

“Even though moving on is going to be a lot different, still having people know where you came from and what you accomplished is cool,” she said.

Another record falls

Macy Miller broke the school’s single-season girls’ points mark Friday.

The junior needed to knock down 18 points against second-seeded Sioux Falls Washington in the Class AA state girls’ basketball tournament to put her name on the record board, and she did, finishing with a game-high 21 points.

“It feels great,” Miller said. “I had no idea I was close to that.”

Miller passed Jeana (Hoffman) Krome’s record of 481 points, which she recorded in her senior season with the Kernels in 2003-04.

Miller, a 6-foot guard, tied the mark with 4:12 left to play in the fourth quarter with a basket. Miller broke the record as she drove to the basket and finished, scoring her 19th point of the game, with 2:28 left to play in the game.

Miller, who’s verbally committed to South Dakota State, now has 485 points this season.

“(Macy and Kerri’s) offense has been pretty good all season,” Mitchell coach Wes Morgan said. “We’ve been relying on them to score some baskets and that takes the pressure off you.”

Tags: state girls basketball, sports, updates, mitchell, kernels