Poll results: Here’s the high school softball player of the week in southwest Illinois

Ryleigh Owens of Edwardsville High School is the winner of this week’s Belleville News-Democrat Softball Player of the Week high school poll, as selected by readers of bnd.com.

In recent action, Owens, a senior pitcher, tossed a 3-hit, complete-game shutout against Southwestern Conference rival Belleville East while leading the Tigers to a 1-0 victory. Owens followed that performance by throwing another complete-game, 3-hit shutout against Chatham Glenwood; throwing a 5-inning, 1-hit shutout against Alton Marquette; and firing a 6-inning, 3-hit shutout against SWC opponent O’Fallon.

Entering play this weekend, Owens boasted a 7-0 record with a 0.61 earned run average and 58 strikeouts in 46 innings of work. She also was batting .302 on the season.

Owens tallied 49% of the votes to finish ahead of Payton Todd of Belleville West High School, who secured 25% of the votes. Other BND nominees included Zoie Boyd of Edwardsville High School, Valerie Combs of Nashville High School, Maddie Davis of Waterloo High School and Lizzie Ludwig of Freeburg 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 high school softball or baseball 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.

Previous softball poll winners: Emily Allen of Belleville West High School (Week 1).