Vote for the southwestern Illinois Softball Player of the Week May 2-7
Vote for the Belleville News-Democrat’s Softball Prep of the Week. Poll closes at 11:59 p.m. Thursday, May 12. To vote again, hit refresh.
Want to nominate an athlete? The BND Athlete of the Week highlights high school varsity softball and baseball 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:
Samaria Adams, Belleville West High School, junior, CF. In recent games against Edwardsville and Freeburg, Adams collected 2 hits in 5 at bats while scoring 2 runs. On the season, she is hitting .456 with 6 home runs, 29 run scored and 26 RBI.
Avery Budde, Breese Central High School, senior, P/INF. Budde went 2-for-3 in a recent game against Nashville and, on the season, is batting .492 with 3 home runs and 26 RBI. Budde also is 10-1 this spring with a 2.07 earned run average and 136 strikeouts in 81 innings pitched.
Kylee Crowder, Belleville East High School, senior, 3B/1B. Crowder helped the Lancers to a recent win against Granite City and is hitting .526 on the season with 9 home runs, 43 RBI and 32 runs scored.
Katie Huels, Mater Dei Catholic High School, sophomore, OF. In recent wins against Gibault and Teutopolis, Huels went 5-for-7 with 5 RBI, 5 runs scored and 2 doubles. Huels is batting .522 on the season with 2 home runs, 18 RBI and 30 runs scored. She also is 3-1 on the mound.
Madalyn Trauernicht, Highland High School, junior, 3B. In 4 games last week, “Maddie” hit .545 with 2 doubles and had an OPS of 1.343 with 0 strikeouts in 11 at bats. Entering this week, the Lady Bulldogs had won 8-straight games during which time Trauernicht hit .565 while slugging .826, driving in 8 runs and walking 4 times in 23 at bats (she also was HPB twice). On the season, Trauernicht is hitting .459 with 2 home runs and 13 RBI.
This story was originally published May 10, 2022 at 5:00 AM.