Hailey Miller was recently welcomed into the 1,000-point family at Lehighton High School.

But that wasn’t the only family that welcomed her into its exclusive club.

The other one doesn’t have quite as many members - but it’s even more special for Miller.

When she reached the career scoring milestone last week against Tamaqua, Miller became the third member of her immediate family to surpass the 1,000-point mark playing basketball.

But Miller’s accomplishment was unique in that she was the first family member to do it during her high school career.

“This is something I set as a goal for myself since I first picked up a basketball,” said Miller. “Both my mother and my sister scored 1,000 points during their college basketball careers. I look up to both of them so much and I’m so proud of everything they accomplished.

“But at the same time, it is nice to be able to do something that neither one of them did ... I guess it give me a little bit of family bragging rights.”

While Miller laughed about being able to hold her achievement up in family gatherings, it’s obvious that she and her family take basketball very seriously.

Her mother Missy (Porzio) Miller was a star player at Lehighton High School in the late 1980s before going on to play college basketball at Cedar Crest where she became the first player in school history to score 1,000 points and also grab 1,000 rebounds during her career.

Then in 2006 - 16 years after her mother accomplished the feat at Cedar Crest College - Hailey’s old sister Courtney (Porzio) Schleicher, who was a star basketball and field hockey player at Lehighton before moving on to Cedar Crest, scored the 1,000th point of her college career.

“I’ve been fortunate to have so much support from my family,” Miller said. “Both my mom and sister were such great players and examples of how hard work pays off.

“I’ve tried to model myself after their work ethic. I pretty much play basketball year round, I’ve been playing AAU ball since sixth grade, I’m always trying to work on my game, I try to never be satisfied, and to keep improving. I love the game and I think a big part of that comes from my family.”

Joe Berezwick has coached Hailey throughout her Indian career. Berezwick said it didn’t take long for him to see that she was a special talent.

“Hailey was a starter since day one of her freshman year,” he said. “She’s just one of those players that you love to have as a coach. She can do it all on the court. She scores, she distributes the ball, she’s averaging around 10 rebounds a game for us this season, and she’s an excellent defender.

“Anything we’ve asked her to do over the years she has done for us. She’s the ultimate team player. But the thing I like to tell people about Hailey is that as good of a basketball player as she is, she’s even a better person.”

Miller became the ninth player in Lehighton girls basketball history to hit the 1,000-point mark and the 17th basketball player overall to accomplish the feat at the school.

“I’ve had great teammates and great coaching,” Miller said. “This would have never been possible without all the help I’ve received from them during my career at Lehighton.

“It was nice being able to share this special moment with both of my families - my parents were here to celebrate with me and so was my basketball family. Because without both of them, this would have never been possible.”