Lynchburg-Clay High School product Peyton Scott is having a breakout season as a sophomore guard with the Miami University women’s basketball team.
Scott was a four-year letter winner at L-CHS and ended her high school career as the program’s leading scorer with 2,202 points.
Scott said she has been playing basketball since she was 5 years old when she got “thrown into” rec leagues at a YMCA and school. She said she always dreamed of playing at a Division I program.
“You know about Lynchburg, you know,” Scott said. “It’s a very small, you know, small school that doesn’t get a lot of love or publicity. But I would say when I played AAU was really what took my game to the next level in recruiting as well as getting my name out there and just, again, working on my skill set and just, you know, reaching potential and just maximizing what I was capable of.”
Since joining the Miami University RedHawks in the 2019-20 season, Scott has averaged 14.9 points per game and scored double-digit points in every game in the 2020-21 season, including five games over 20 points. She averages 3.0 assists and 5.3 rebounds and has started all 43 games she played in — 30 in 2019-20 and 13 in 2020-21, respectively. She was selected to the All-Mid American Conference Freshman Team a season ago.
But Scott’s star has really risen this season. She is averaging 19.2 points, 6.6 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 2.3 steals per game, while shooting 38.9 percent from the field and 83.9 percent at the free-throw line. She has been named the Miami Women’s Athlete of the Week four times so far this season.
Scott said a big reason for choosing to play at Miami University was being close to home and having her social support system near her.
“That was a big thing for me as well as when I came on my official visit,” Scott said. “It just felt, you know, very homelike. I’m very used to, you know, a small town and just kinda the feel of everybody knows everybody, which, you know, I love that as well as just the home feeling of the town and the people that work here. It just felt like the right place to be for me.”
Scott explained that one of the coolest moments so far from her time at Miami University was when the RedHawks had a non-conference game at Pitt, which Miami won. Following the game, ESPN reporter Holly Rowe asked to interview Scott thanks to her performance during the game.
Scott said that what she enjoys about the sport is how simple it can be, “but at the same time I feel like there’s so many challenges within it and I believe every time like you go up a level, I think that there’s like so much more potential that you can tap in to. For instance, just going from middle school to high school, the transition in that as well as the transition from like high school to AAU (Amateur Athletic Union), and then obviously high school to college. It’s just like the different stages of basketball as well as just the challenges that come with each stage, you know. The difference in even the minor details that’s in each stage of the sport I think is pretty awesome, and I think just the challenge of it is what drives me most.”
Even though Scott has turned into a premier player for the RedHawks, she has continued to work on her skills and tried to get better.
“I think the aim for every game is just to win and I think every team has a goal of winning a championship eventually or, you know, for a mid-major get to the tournament,” she said. “But, you know, I think every game you just go in to it, you know, you have your scout and what you work on, but I don’t think there’s like an end goal of, you know, I’m trying to get this many points or this many assists or this and that. I don’t think it’s that at all.
“Just, you know, trusting in my prep and what I’ve been doing and just trusting in my skill set and just going out there, and again, just doing my best, helping my teammates however I can and just, yeah, trust in that.”
