Connecticut High School Softball Player of the Week: How Voting Works & How to Win

What Camryn Fisher's 32 strikeouts reveal about this ballot

Start with the line that no other Connecticut high school softball poll has produced on record: Camryn Fisher of Ellington pitched 11 innings, struck out 32 batters, and won 1-0 over Granby Memorial in extra innings. She was on the May 13, 2025 ballot. So were two other pitchers with double- digit strikeout totals in complete-game wins — Sydney Miller (Brookfield, 12 Ks) and Emma Giaccone (Haddam-Killingworth, 12 Ks in a perfect game) — plus Abigail Corris of Foran, who struck out 17 in a one-hitter.

Four complete-game or near-complete-game pitching performances on one eight-name ballot. That tells you something specific about what this poll rewards in a heavy pitching week, and something specific about what it asks voters to compare. Fisher's 32-K game is the kind of line that turns a fan vote into a genuine question: how do you weigh a historically rare strikeout total against a perfect game thrown on the same day by someone at a different school?

The answer, on these ballots, is turnout. SI does not weight by statistical difficulty. The candidate whose community organizes before Sunday night wins, regardless of which stat line a neutral observer would rank first. Fisher's Ellington supporters and Giaccone's Haddam- Killingworth supporters were running separate campaigns on the same ballot on the same weekend. That dynamic — objectively comparable performances, decided by mobilization — is what makes this poll worth understanding before you vote in it.

What the nominee record actually shows (and what it doesn't)

The public record for this poll is thin in one specific way: SI does not publish vote totals or winners outside the weekly articles, and only one confirmed prior winner is named in the available data. Gabby Celozzi of Amity Regional — a complete game, 2 hits allowed, 8 strikeouts — is listed as the previous week's winner at the top of the April 22, 2025 article. That is the extent of the confirmed historical record. No margins. No runner-up names.

What the two ballot weeks do show is which schools keep producing nominees. Three players appeared on both the April 22 and May 13 ballots: Camryn Fisher (Ellington), Abigail Corris (Foran), and Sydney Miller (Brookfield). That kind of repeat presence in a ten-player field is not accidental. Fisher's 32-K game and Corris's 17-K one-hitter were not one-off flukes — both pitchers backed up their nominations with second appearances, and Brookfield's Sydney Miller did the same on the hitting and pitching side across both weeks.

The April 22 ballot was geographically and stylistically broader: eight different schools, a mix of pitchers and hitters, one freshman (Alexis Walters of Berlin), and Abigail Corris notching her 400th career strikeout in a 5-inning no-hitter. The May 13 ballot was pitching-dominated — six of eight nominees led with a strikeout line, and the pure hitters were the minority. Both weeks reflect real Connecticut spring softball, and neither week is the rule.

One practical note: the composition of the field matters for campaign planning. A hitter nominated in a pitching-heavy week is likely the lone offensive standout on the ballot, which concentrates support from fans who prefer position-player stats. A pitcher going against three other complete-game performances is in a genuinely competitive sub-race within the ballot.

The Sunday close, and how Connecticut campaigns run out of time

Connecticut's softball ballot closes Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Pacific. That is the standard SI deadline for this state — it does not get the extra Monday window that some SI regional football polls in other states carry. The window that matters runs from when the article posts (typically mid-to- late in the week) through Sunday night.

SI states explicitly that it "does not set limits on how many times a fan can vote." A single supporter can return to the ballot across multiple days. But the campaigns that actually move these polls are not built on one person voting repeatedly — they are built on reaching enough separate people before the poll closes. The school that starts texting the link the day the article goes up and keeps it going through Saturday picks up votes that the school that posts once on Sunday morning misses entirely.

Connecticut's CIAC spring season runs April through the state tournament in June. During a playoff run, a school's fan base is already activated for game attendance — that same energy, redirected toward a Sunday-deadline ballot, is the most efficient campaign. Programs like Ellington, Foran, and Brookfield that appear consistently on these ballots are programs with active softball communities, not just talented players.

For how weekly fan polls work in general, see the voting guide. More Connecticut contests are listed at /usa/connecticut/, and the full national directory is at /usa/.