NATCHEZ — Alex Miller doesn’t have much free time, but he prefers it that way.

The Trinity Episcopal Day School junior plays tennis and basketball while being the treasurer of Trinity’s Key Club, a member of the National Honors Society and was selected to participate in the Leadership Natchez Program.

Aside from his role in several organizations, Miller also finds time to work at The Castle Restaurant at Dunleith Plantation.

Miller said the key to balancing his many duties and excelling is focus.

“Don’t worry about everybody else, worry about you and what you need to do to succeed,” Miller said. “(Balancing everything) is not really hard. You have to know when something is slipping and put in the effort to make up for it.”

Miller has excelled as a scholar athlete, with a 4.18 GPA and an undefeated district record in the No. 1 boys’ doubles division going into the MAIS Class A South State tournament Tuesday.

“I started in eighth grade just to play, but after the first year, I finally decided to give it a chance the next summer,” Miller said. “It definitely takes practice. You have to like it to become anything. If you don’t like it, you’re not going to put in the effort.”

Trinity tennis coach Noreen Pyron said Miller has put in the effort to stay on top of his game.

“You have to be very competitive,” Pyron said. “He is very committed. If he has to leave to go to work, he comes to practice and gets his work done first.

“He’s really come along this year. In his last match at South State (last year), it was evident how much he wanted to improve, and this year he picked up where he left off and stayed focus.”

Miller said he has put in the extra time with doubles partner Grant Falkenheiner to go into the South State tournament as the No. 1 seed.

“You can’t add any skills in a week, but (you can) fine tune your skills and make sure everything is good,” he said.

With a chance at the state title less than a week away, Miller said he is also focusing his time on finishing the school year off strong.

The junior is taking an advanced placement U.S. history course, and he said he is hoping to take advanced placement calculus next school year.

Miller is not worried about calculus, because he said math is his favorite subject.

“I love math, it never really changes,” he said. “It’s constant and once you learn one thing, you apply and build on it.”

Miller is also taking honors trigonometry and doesn’t find much trouble passing the course with flying colors.

“It’s just triangles and algebra, pretty much,” Miller said. “A perfect mesh of the two.”

Miller said he would like to continue his education at the University of Mississippi as an accounting major.