PGH Iowa Week 1 Player of the Week: Helaina Hillyard
With 42.36% of the vote, Helaina Hillyard of Mediapolis was voted the Iowa Player of the Week. Hillyard impressed in a victory over Winfield Mt-Union and helped lead her team to a 64-32 season-opening win. In the game, Hillyard was outstanding as she scored 17 points. She grabbed a double-double by swiping 13 steals and she was also able to add in seven rebounds and six assists. It was an all-around tremendous performance and the definition of someone stuffing the stat sheet.
Mediapolis now sits at 2-0 with a win to start this week. They are getting contributions from all over but the play of Hillyard has really spurred them. This season should be a solid one with a senior-laden roster. Mediapolis has five seniors on the team and all of them have played together for their entire lives. This is something that Hillyard exclaimed that she was very excited about and even though it’ll be a fun year, they have their eyes on making a run to Wells Fargo Arena at the end of the season.
“I’m looking forward to working hard with my best friends and it hopefully paying off,” she said. “My teammates are awesome. They’re my best friends and we’ve been playing together since first-grade Y-ball, we all trust in each other so it’s so much fun. Our goal is to win the conference and then later make it to state.”
Hillyard had a great start to the year and after a 14-point, eight steals, seven assists performance in game two, expect her to have a couple of triple-doubles on the season. She is the definition of a high-level multi-sport athlete as she has signed to play Divison I volleyball at Western Illinois. Once again, congratulations on winning the Player of the Week amongst some tremendous other athletes!