Heading into the last game of 2019 for the La Salle Explorers, Shalina Miller sat just ten blocks away from tying the school’s all-time career blocks record. Miller, one of only two seniors on the team and one of the team’s captains, was looking to help end the team’s five-game skid by dominating the paint on both sides of the ball.
With ten points, ten rebounds, and five blocks, dominating the paint is exactly what Miller did. When La Salle focused on feeding her in the post, she was either hitting shots or getting fouled. On the defensive end, she was altering shots, rejecting layups, and not allowing the bigs of Temple to get any sort of easy bucket.
Down the stretch, when La Salle was trying to mount their comeback, Miller was coming up big time by limiting Temple’s second chances and shutting down their guards whenever they came inside. In the end, it wasn’t enough since most of the damage Temple was doing was from the outside. However, Miller crept closer to that career block record.
Amy Griffin holds the record, for now, with 151 blocks, and was even Miller’s teammate for her last two years at the school. After the game against Temple, Miller now boasts 146 blocks over her four-year career which is good for a 1.4 blocks per game average. With still more than half of the season left, it looks as though Griffin will be passing the torch over to Miller.
During the post-game press conference, when she was told that she was only five away, she was surprised and said she wasn’t even aware. As the Philadelphia native averages 2.5 blocks per game this season, she could tie or even break the all-time record within her next two games against Dayton or Saint Louis.
