Poll results: East St. Louis star guard BND Girls Player of the Week in southwest IL​

Shakara “Lyve” McCline of East St Louis Senior 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 regional action, McCline, a senior guard, hit a 3-point shot that sent East St Louis and Taylorville into overtime, where the Flyerettes pulled out a 78-74 win. McCline finished with 42 points in the game to send her team to the regional championship.

In the title game against Mascoutah, McCline hit a 3-pointer in the final seconds and contributed 28 points to help secure the 50-47 win. Overall, McCline had a total of 70 points in the two games, helping her team win the Mascoutah Regional championship.

McCline, who tallied 44% of the votes, finished the season averaging is averaging 26 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.85 assists and 3.08 steals per game for the Flyers, who completed the campaign at 13-21 following an 85-81 loss to Mount Vernon in the sectional semifinals.

Here were the other candidates for the week of Feb. 13-18:

• Laila Blakeny, Alton High School, senior, G. Blakeny posted 19 points in a 58-31 victory against Quincy.
• D’Myjah Bolds, O’Fallon High School, junior, F. Bolds posted 18 points and 8 rebounds in a 71-21 win against Belleville West and 10 points with 9 rebounds in a 63-20 victory over Belleville East.
• Alayna Kraus, Okawville High School, junior, G. Kraus scored 18 points in a 71-14 win against Dupo and 10 points in a 50-10 win against Nokomis.
• Kaydence Schroeder, Breese Central High School, junior, C. Schroeder posted 17 points in a 37-23 victory over Freeburg.
  
  
• Larissa Taylor, Highland High School, junior, F. Taylor posted 14 points and 9 rebounds in a 52-49 victory over Waterloo.

The poll ended at 8 a.m. Friday.

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. Wednesday. Please email nominations to gvartanian@bnd.com.

This story was originally published February 27, 2023 at 7:00 AM.