Poll results: Here’s the high school girls basketball player of the week in southwest Illinois
Sydney Harris of Edwardsville High School is the winner of this week’s Belleville News-Democrat Girls Player of the Week high school basketball poll, as selected by readers of bnd.com.
In recent high school basketball postseason games, Harris, a senior G/F, scored 25 points in a win against Pekin and 20 points in a win against Alton to help Edwardsville capture the regional championship. Harris then lifted the Tigers to a sectional crown by scoring 25 points in a win against O’Fallon in the semifinals before the team knocked off Normal Community in the finals.
Harris — who also was the Week 7 winner of the BND Athlete of the Week poll — then posted 23 points in a 56-53 loss to Bollingbrook in super-sectional competition, ending Edwardsville’s season at 29-5. She finished the season averaging 23.8 points and 7.4 rebounds per game.
Harris tallied 62% of the votes to finish ahead of other BND nominees Shannon Dowell of O’Fallon High School, teammate Elle Evans of EHS, Karsen Jany of Columbia High School and Kailynn Kruep of Mater Dei High School. The poll ended at 11:59 p.m. Thursday.
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.
Anyone can nominate a varsity boys or girls high school basketball player for an upcoming poll by emailing gvartanian@bnd.com. The next poll will appear on the BND’s website — www.bnd.com — at 5 a.m. Tuesday.
Past poll winners: Tyler Lunning of O’Fallon High School (Week 1), Dylan Murphy of Columbia High School (Week 2), Brady Moore of Breese Central High School (Week 3), Collinsville Prairie Farms Holiday Classic (Week 4), Kaden Augustine of Gibault Catholic High School (Week 5), Natalie Peterson of Freeburg High School (Week 6), Sydney Harris of Edwardsville High School (Week 7), Kaylyn Wylie of Granite City High School and Lunning (Week 8); Kylie Kisgen of Freeburg High School and Lane Otten of Freeburg High School (Week 9); Caleb Burton of O’Fallon High School and Jaliah Pelly of O’Fallon High School (Week 10); and Gannon Birkner of New Athens High School, Reagan Chigas of Triad High School (Week 11) and Norah Gum of Waterloo High School and Jake Ottensmeier of Highland High School and (Week 12).
