Vote for the southwestern Illinois Girls Basketball Player of the Week Feb. 14-19
Vote for the Belleville News-Democrat’s Girls Prep of the Week. Poll closes at 11:59 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 24. To vote again, hit refresh.
Want to nominate an athlete? The BND Athlete of the Week highlights high school varsity boys and girls basketball players who put in outstanding performances from the week prior to the opening of the poll. If you want to suggest someone to be included, send an email to Garen Vartanian at gvartanian@bnd.com.
Please include the athlete’s name, school, class, position, and applicable game performance statistics. Coaches must be willing to verify information.
To be clear, this poll is not scientific. In fact, we invite you to vote as many times as you want. It’s all for fun, BND readers. People also may submit the same athlete from week to week.
We are planning to post the results later this week after the poll closes.
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Here are this week’s nominees:
- Shannon Dowell, O’Fallon High School, junior, G. Scored 27 points in regional win against Belleville East and 8 points in a victory against Collinsville in the regional championship game. She recently eclipsed the 1,000-point plateau. Averaging 16.4 points and 6.6 rebounds per game.
- Norah Gum, Waterloo High School, junior, F. Scored 37 points in a regional win against Mascoutah and 18 points in a loss against Triad in the regional championship game. Finished the season averaging 18.2 points and 8.9 rebounds per game.
Octavia Heidelberg, Dupo High School, senior, F. Scored 16 points in win against Nokomis. Finished the season averaging 16.2 points and 12.5 rebounds per game.
- Kailynn Kruep, Mater Dei High School, junior, G. Scored 19 points in a regional win against Columbia and then helped the Knights beat Freeburg in the regional championship game. Averaging 10.7 points per game.
- Shakara McCline, East. St. Louis High School, junior, PG. Scored 21 points and grabbed 7 rebounds in a win regional win against Taylorville. Finished the season averaging 19.1 points, 3.9 rebounds and 3 assists per game.
Sophia Loden, Mascoutah High School, junior, F/G. Scored 25 points in a loss to Waterloo in regional game. Averaged 22.7 points, 12.5 and 3.61 steals per game this season.
Maliah Sparks, Belleville West High School, junior, G. Scored 11 points in a regional loss to Collinsville. Finished the season averaging 16.6 points, 6.9 rebounds and 2 assists per game.
This story was originally published February 22, 2022 at 5:00 AM.