Rock Hill’s Laila Hankerson is The Herald’s latest winter sports athlete of the week

Laila Hankerson is The Herald’s latest winter sports athlete of the week.

The 5-6 sophomore on the Rock Hill girls’ basketball team had 16 points, four rebounds, two assists and two steals to lead the Bearcats to a 59-32 win at Nation Ford on Dec. 11. Hankerson also had six points, five rebounds, three steals and two assists in a 47-33 win over Nation Ford on Dec. 8. Hankerson is averaging 14.2 points, 4.3 rebounds and 3.7 steals per game for a talented Rock Hill (8-1) team this season.

There were 31,443 votes cast in this week’s poll, and Hankerson earned 29.7% of the vote. Abby Snearly of Fort Mill finished second with 25.7% of the vote, and Matthew White of Northwestern finished with 22.3% of the vote.

View the merits of the finalists and the full results of the poll below. Voting opened Dec. 14.

Player of the Week finalists

Lawrence Bartee, Clover boys’ basketball: Clover’s 6-9 junior averaged a double-double in two games last week (11.5 points and 10.5 rebounds per game), shooting 90% from two-point range. The Blue Eagles fell to Northwestern, 49-43, on Dec. 8 but defeated York, 52-42, on Dec. 11.

Zy Brown, York boys’ basketball: Brown had 18 points and five assists in a 52-42 loss to at Clover on Dec. 11. Brown is averaging 21 points per game for York (1-2) this season.

Nadia Burns, Legion Collegiate girls’ basketball: The 5-9 sophomore had 19 points and nine rebounds in a 38-36 loss at Buford on Dec. 12. Burns also led her team in scoring with nine points in the Battle at the Rock showcase this past weekend. (Yes, Nadia Burns is related to DJ Burns — who is her big brother and a redshirt sophomore forward at Winthrop.)

Laila Hankerson, Rock Hill girls’ basketball.

Victoria Jordan, Catawba Ridge girls’ basketball: The 6-foot senior averaged 11.5 points per game in wins over Charlotte Latin and Fort Mill this week. Jordan had 16 points in a 36-32 win at Fort Mill on Dec. 11. On the season, Jordan is averaging 14 points and 10 rebounds per game for the young Copperheads, who are 6-1 overall.

Abby Snearly, Fort Mill girls’ basketball: The 6-foot senior averaged 17 points and eight rebounds in two games this week as Fort Mill split games with Catawba Ridge and York. Snearly had 19 points and nine rebounds in a 48-32 win over York on Dec. 8. She followed that up with 15 points, seven rebounds and two assists in a 36-32 loss to Catawba Ridge on Dec. 11. Snearly is averaging 13.4 points, 8.1 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game for Fort Mill (3-4) this season.

Aylesha Wade, Clover girls’ basketball: The Clover senior captain averaged 25 points per contest in three games this week. Wade had 15 points in a 61-21 win at Northwestern on Dec. 7. The Charlotte 49ers commit then poured in 31 points in a 70-33 win over York on Dec. 11. And then on Dec. 12, Wade had 29 points in a 69-67 loss to Keenan at the Battle at the Rock showcase in the Rock Hill Sports and Event Center.

Matthew White, Northwestern boys’ basketball: The 5-10 Trojan senior guard had 18 points (including four 3-pointers), seven rebounds and three assists to lead Northwestern to a 49-43 win over Clover on Dec. 8. White is averaging 10.2 points, 2.5 rebounds and two assists for Northwestern (1-3) this season.

Avery Armstrong, Rock Hill boys’ basketball: The Rock Hill senior shooting guard had 15 points in a 62-42 win over Nation Ford on Dec. 8. Three nights later, Armstrong scored 15 more points to help the Bearcats win, 44-38, at Nation Ford. Rock Hill is 6-1 this season.

How to nominate

Player of the week awards highlight high school players with outstanding performances. The goal is to recognize all athletes — both the most accomplished and the underrated or underappreciated players. If you want to suggest someone to be included in the ballot in future weeks, send an email to Jay Edwards at edwardswork23@gmail.com. Please include the athlete’s name, school, class and applicable game performance statistics. Coaches must be willing to verify information.

Full results

If you can’t view the poll on mobile, click here.

This story was originally published December 14, 2020 at 4:54 PM.

Alex Zietlow

The Herald

Alex Zietlow writes about sports and the ways in which they intersect with life in York, Chester and Lancaster counties for The Herald, where he has been an editor and reporter since August 2019. Zietlow has won nine S.C. Press Association awards in his career, including First Place finishes in Feature Writing, Sports Enterprise Writing and Education Beat Reporting. He also received two Top-10 awards in the 2021 APSE writing contest and was nominated for the 2022 U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s Rising Star award for his coverage of the Winthrop men’s basketball team.