Olivia Smith of South Side is the 2022 FAN CHOICE girls hoops Player of the Year, sponsored by Craigville Appliance

For the third straight season, South Side guard Olivia Smith is the FAN CHOICE Player of the Year for girls basketball.

Smith took home the final round vote over Columbia City’s Bekah Marshall with 90.71 percent of the nearly 1,500 fan votes.

In the opening round, Smith received the most overall votes to earn the #1 seed through the rest of the FAN VOTE process. She earned 55.32 percent of the votes in the SAC’s SPARTAN Region.

In the quarterfinals, Smith received 89.05 percent of the FAN VOTE in a win over Blackhawk Christian’s Hailee Kline.

In the semi finals, Smith scored 90.5 percent of the FAN VOTE to beat out Angola’s Lauren Leach.

In all, Smith received 13,308 of the over 47,000 total votes cast through four rounds.

Smith was also the winner of the Preseason FAN VOTE for Player of the Year and, as previously mentioned, had won the postseason FAN VOTE as both a sophomore and junior. Over the three seasons, Smith received 32 percent of the almost 274,000 total votes that have been cast by Outside the Huddle readers.