Printing Concepts Scholar Athlete of the Month

-Story by Wilmington College Sports Informaiton

Being a college student is a full-time job. Add on the time commitment of being an athlete, and there aren’t many hours left in the day. Wilmington College men’s soccer senior Casey Miller has been able to excel at both.

On the field, the Dayton native was a four-year starter playing in 65 career games. He was named Second Team All-Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) as a senior in the fall of 2022 and served as a team captain. In the classroom, Miller is a double major in sport management and marketing and carries a 3.96 grade point average. For his efforts in both areas, the Centerville High School alumnus was named Academic All-OAC the maximum three times and garnered Academic All-District honors from College Sports Communicators.

The to success, according to Miller, is being fully focused on the present task.

“When I’m at practice, I’m fully focused on soccer,” he said. “Outside of soccer, you have to put the time in to your academics. It’s manageable as an NCAA Division III student-athlete to keep up with both. Setting aside time both before and after practices and games to get my coursework done definitely set me up for success.”

Coincidentally, Miller felt he performed better academically during the fall semesters, which is when men’s soccer season is in full swing.

“Believe it or not, I did better with my classes in season then out of season,” said Miller. “I have less time to do school work, but that means that time needs to go towards studying. Out of season [spring semester], I had the tendency to get a little lazy at times, despite having more free hours in the day.”

During Miller’s career on the pitch, the Quakers went from failing to qualify for the postseason his freshman year to navigating a unique “2020 season” that was played in the spring of 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After consecutive third-place finishes has a sophomore and a junior, Miller and his teammates were determined to not have their senior season end like the previous year, where WC fell to Capital University 4-3 at home in an OAC Tournament quarterfinal.

The Quakers would need to do this with a new head coach – Corey Bucur – as former head coach Alex Van der Sluijs departed the program for NCAA Division I Wright State University.

“I was really excited in the preseason with the new coaching staff,” Miller commented. “Alex [Van der Sluijs] did a lot of great things with the program, but Corey [Bucur] came in and understood right away this was a big season with a lot of experience returning.”

With eight seniors returning including three fifth-year seniors, Wilmington finished its regular season 10-5-3. After dispatching the University of Mount Union 4-0 in perhaps the team’s most complete game of the season at home to open the season, the No. 4-ranked Quakers headed to top-seeded Ohio Northern University for an OAC Tournament semifinal. Just like the regular season, WC fell behind a goal early, but tied it in the second half and eventually won the game in double overtime. The victory propelled the Quakers to their first OAC Tournament title game since 2006. There, Wilmington fell to John Carroll University.

“It hurt to come up short, but we had a lot of young players step up with the upperclassmen to go out on a good note,” said Miller. “It was an awesome senior season despite the final game.”