Poll results: Here’s the high school softball team of the year in southwest Illinois

Edwardsville High School’s softball team is the winner of the Belleville News-Democrat Softball Team of the Year high school poll for 2022, as selected by readers of bnd.com.

The Tigers had a spectacular season, culminated by finishing third at the IHSA Class 4A state tournament. After losing 2-0 to St. Charles North in the state semifinals, Edwardsville completed the campaign by defeating Barrington 4-3 in the third place game at Louisville Slugger Complex in Peoria.

Along the way, the Tigers beat Quincy and Collinsville in regional competition; Belleville East and Bradley-Bourbonnais in sectional competition; and West Aurora in the super-sectional. Edwardsville also shared the Southwestern Conference title with Belleville East with an 11-1 mark while finishing 33-4 overall.

Edwardsville tallied 40% of the votes to finish ahead of other BND candidates Belleville East High School, Belleville West High School, Freeburg High School, Highland High School, Marissa High School, Mater Dei Catholic High School and Triad 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.

The next poll will appear on the BND’s website — www.bnd.com — at 5 a.m. Tuesday and will be a vote on the St Louis City SC professional soccer expansion team that will begin play in 2023. Have other summer poll suggestions as we transition to high school fall sports? Please email them to gvartanian@bnd.com.

Previous softball poll winners: Emily Allen of Belleville West High School (Week 1), Ryleigh Owens of Edwardsville High School (Week 2), Jordyn Heckert of Okawville High School (Week 3), Brylee Anderton of Collinsville High School (Week 4), Avery Budde of Breese Central High School (Week 5), Owens (Week 6), Taylor Hettenhausen of Okawville High School (Week 7) and Sophia Donoho of Highland High School (Week 8). The player of the year, as voted on in Week 9, was Owens.