West Virginia High School Girls Basketball Athlete of the Week: How Voting Works & How to Win

Would a girls-only ballot actually change who gets noticed in West Virginia basketball?

The year-round Athlete of the Week ballot on si.com/high-school/west-virginia already puts a girls basketball guard from Winfield in the same weekly field as a boys wrestler from Martinsburg and a swimmer from Wheeling Park. Whoever the editorial desk features that week wins the slot, regardless of sport. A dedicated girls basketball edition would narrow that field to nothing else, just WVSSAC girls basketball performances competing against each other for one weekly headline.

That's the structural case for a standalone ballot, not proof one runs yet. High School on SI's West Virginia hub has already built two sport-specific single-season editions: a fall football ballot confirmed active across the 2024 and 2025 seasons, and a spring softball ballot confirmed through dated posts in April 2025. Neither replaces the general, all-sport ballot; both run alongside it during their own season. A winter girls basketball edition, if it exists, would follow that same shape.

Programs with sustained girls basketball followings, Parkersburg South in Wood County, Bridgeport in Harrison County, Winfield in Putnam County, Sissonville in Kanawha County, are the counties most likely to carry deep basketball-following infrastructure if a statewide girls-only field opens up. That's a claim about which communities are already paying attention, not a claim about any confirmed nomination or result. For how fan-vote polls like this one are typically built once they go live, the online contest voting guide covers mechanics that carry over across every sport on this hub.

What's confirmed on the hub, and what a girls basketball edition still has to prove

Two sport-specific editions on this hub already have a paper trail. Football's edition shows up in dated posts across the 2024 and 2025 seasons. Softball's edition shows up in dated posts from April 2025. A winter girls basketball post naming specific nominees has not surfaced the same way, at least not in any form this page can point to and confirm.

What is documented is narrower. Si.com publishes West Virginia girls basketball standings coverage each winter on the same high school hub. That's real editorial infrastructure, the kind that would already need to exist before a dedicated vote could launch. It's a different claim from confirming the vote itself exists, and this page keeps the two separate rather than blending them into one.

Two confirmed single-sport editions running the identical shape, one in fall and one in spring, reads closer to a house style than a coincidence. That's the basis for treating a winter girls basketball edition as a reasonable guess rather than a wild one. A reasonable guess still isn't a confirmed fact, and nothing on this page should be read as more certain than that.

How the vote would actually run, based on every confirmed edition already on this hub

Every SI-hosted West Virginia ballot follows the same shape once it's live. A dated article goes up on si.com/high-school/west-virginia naming that week's nominees, an embedded voting widget sits inside the article itself, and the ballot closes at a time stated on that specific post rather than a fixed weekly calendar. Football and softball both run this way. There's no confirmed reason to expect a girls basketball edition to look different.

That vote-cap line is worth sitting with. Neither the football nor the softball edition states a fixed cap anywhere in its own confirmed record; some SI hubs elsewhere post an explicit one-vote-per-fan rule, others run with none at all. Assuming either format before reading that week's actual post is a mistake anyone building a real campaign should skip.

Older posts on this hub stay live online long after their own voting window closes. Bookmarking si.com/high-school/west-virginia and checking the publish date, not just the sport, before sharing a link keeps supporters from landing on an expired poll.

The WVSSAC classification mix and the county geography a girls ballot would pull from

WVSSAC girls basketball runs across four enrollment classes, the same reclassification structure that governs football, softball, and every other sport in the state. A Class AAAA program from Kanawha or Wood County and a Class A program from a county a fraction of that size compete under the same statewide association, though not necessarily on the same weekly ballot unless a girls basketball edition mirrors the classification-blind format football and softball both already use.

Parkersburg South has carried Wood County's girls basketball following for years. Bridgeport does the same for Harrison County, alongside Robert C. Byrd just down the road in Clarksburg. Winfield and Buffalo split Putnam County's attention, and Sissonville anchors a corner of Kanawha County that already sends plenty of nominees to the general ballot most winters. None of that is a claim about who has won anything on a dedicated girls basketball edition. It's the geography a statewide ballot would most likely draw its field from if the SI pattern holds.

What that means for anyone actually tracking this

Check si.com/high-school/west-virginia once WVSSAC girls basketball tips off in November, and keep checking through the February stretch run. A confirmed post changes the entire calculation for how a campaign gets organized. An unconfirmed one means the general, all-sport ballot stays the only verified option for a girls basketball nominee that particular week.

Where a confirmed girls basketball edition would sit among West Virginia's other fan-vote polls

West Virginia already runs four confirmed fan-vote programs in this general family. High School on SI hosts the year-round general Athlete of the Week ballot and the fall-only football Athlete of the Week on the same si.com/high-school/west-virginia hub covered above. WTRF 7 in Wheeling runs a separate, market-scoped Athlete of the Week vote limited to its own Ohio Valley footprint. None of West Virginia's athlete polls have anything to do with the Best in the Tri-State readers' poll, which recognizes local businesses rather than athletes and runs on an entirely separate calendar.

A confirmed girls basketball edition, if and when a dated post proves one exists, would slot in as a fifth entry: statewide in reach like the SI ballots, sport-specific like football and softball, running on a winter clock that doesn't overlap with either of those two. Until that post surfaces, the general ballot remains the only verified place a girls basketball nominee can be found on this hub during the season.

For the tactics that apply once any weekly fan-vote ballot is confirmed live, how to get votes for an online contest covers outreach that carries over regardless of sport. If a confirmed ballot goes live and a program's realistic supporter network, family, alumni, school staff, has been reached and a gap remains before the close, paced vote support for sports fan polls is worth reading against that week's own posted terms first, alongside the honest baseline at is buying votes legal. For the rest of the state's contests, see the West Virginia contest hub and the national USA contest index.