Cooper Zohner of Clover voted The Herald’s Football Player of the Week (Aug. 23)

Cooper Zohner of the Clover football team has been voted The Herald’s Football Player of the Week.

The 6-foot-2, 210-pound junior linebacker had 15 tackles — including four tackles for loss — and one forced fumble to lead Clover to a 20-7 upset victory at Dorman on Aug. 20. (Zohner’s forced fumble led to a crucial “scoop-and-score” Clover touchdown.) The Blue Eagles are 1-0 on the season and welcome Charlotte’s Myers Park to Memorial Stadium in Clover on Friday.

Zohner was also recognized as the 5A Tri-County Defensive Player of the Week this past Tuesday.

There were an astounding 29,429 votes cast in this week’s poll. Zohner earned 31.5% of the vote and South Pointe’s Waymond Jenerette earned 30.3% of the vote — the two were only separated by 326 votes.

Dumkele Idehen of Indian Land notched 20.5% of the vote.

View the poll’s full results and the merits of this week’s finalists below.

Football Player of the Week finalists

Xavier “Zae” Brown, Great Falls: The 6-foot-1, 190-pound senior quarterback accounted for 235 yards of total offense and four touchdowns to lead Great Falls to a 36-12 win at Whitmire on Aug. 20. Brown did a little bit of everything in his team’s season-opening victory: He was 12-of-18 passing for 133 yards and two touchdowns and added 102 yards and two scores on the ground. Brown also had 12 tackles and one pass deflection for the Great Falls defense.

Jacobie Henderson, Catawba Ridge: Henderson had a big impact on offense, defense and special teams to help Catawba Ridge to a 35-0 win over Fort Mill on Aug. 20. The 6-foot, 185-pound senior receiver had five catches for 88 yards and a touchdown on offense and also had four tackles and one sack for the Catawba Ridge (1-0) defense. The Marshall University commit also added eight punt returns for 96 yards.

Dumkele Idehen, Indian Land: The 6-foot, 215-pound middle linebacker had 20 tackles and one tackle for loss to help Indian Land (1-0) to a 34-27 home win over Nation Ford on Aug. 20. Idehen, who notched an offer from Army earlier this summer, also contributed six carries for 43 yards to the Warrior offense. (Idehen, too, is a standout student with a 4.0 GPA, per Indian Land coach Adam Hastings.)

Waymond Jenerette, South Pointe: The 6-foot, 170-pound senior wide receiver had 11 catches for 209 yards and two touchdowns to play a critical role in a 40-35 win at Northwestern on Aug. 21. Jenerette’s performance included a 50-yard touchdown grab (on a 3rd-and-30 play), a 38-yard touchdown catch and a 67-yard reception that led to a South Pointe (1-0) touchdown later in the drive.

Cooper Zohner, Clover.

View full results below

If you can’t view the poll on your mobile device, click here to refresh the page.

How to nominate

Player of the Week awards highlight high school players with outstanding performances. The goal is to recognize all athletes — both the 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. The Herald reserves the right to remove a name from the poll at its discretion.

This story was originally published August 23, 2021 at 4:36 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.