Poll results: Here’s the high school baseball player of the year in southwest Illinois
Owen Kelly of Belleville East High School is the winner of the Belleville News-Democrat Baseball Player of the Year high school poll for 2022, as selected by readers of bnd.com.
In a recent action, Kelly, a junior pitcher/outfielder, threw 5 no-hit innings in a regional championship win against Belleville West, while allowing just 1 unearned run. Kelly went 6-0 this spring with a 2.49 earned run average and 62 strikeouts in 45 innings pitched for the Lancers, who reached the sectional semifinals and finished 27-9.
Kelly tallied 41% of the votes to finish ahead of other BND candidates/nominees Connor Bain of Triad High School, Dalton Boruff of Breese Central High School, Brendan Brock of Mascoutah High School, Evan Davis of Waterloo High School, Grant Huebner of Edwardsville High School, JD Kramer of Belleville West High School, Joseph Mendiola of Belleville East High School, Spencer Stearns of Edwardsville High School, Tyler Tieman of Althoff Catholic High School, Dominic Voegele of Columbia High School and Alex Wright of Granite City High School.
Candidates were compiled from the previous Athlete of the Week winners and additional nominations. 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.
The next poll will appear on the BND’s website — www.bnd.com — at 5 a.m. Tuesday and will be a vote for the Baseball Team of the Year for 2022. Please email nominations to gvartanian@bnd.com.
Previous baseball poll winners: Alex Wright of Granite City High School (Week 1), Owen Kelly of Belleville East High School (Week 2), Dalton Boruff of Breese Central High School (Week 3), Tyler Tieman of Althoff Catholic High School (Week 4), Evan Davis of Waterloo High School (Week 5), JD Kramer of Belleville West High School (Week 6), Grant Huebner of Edwardsville High School (Week 7) and Joseph Mendiola of Belleville East High School (Week 8).
This story was originally published June 11, 2022 at 7:00 AM.