Bay Area News Group girls athlete of the week: Gelenna Smithers, Heritage basketball

Heritage basketball player Gelenna Smithers is the Bay Area News Group’s girls high school athlete of the week for Nov. 25-30.

In online voting that ended at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Smithers finished with 34.00% of the votes, just barely ahead of Oakland Tech basketball player Terri’A Russell’s 33.90%.  California basketball player Sofie Addiego was third.

Congratulations to all the candidates for this week’s recognition.

The senior, a two-year varsity player, scored a team-high 14 points to go with four rebounds and four steals in a victory over defending CIF Division V state champion Oakland.

To nominate an athlete for next week’s poll, email highschools@bayareanewsgroup.com by Monday at 11 a.m. Please include stats and team results.

We also review stats submitted to MaxPreps.com by coaches/team statisticians for consideration.

Votes by email do not count. Only votes submitted through the online poll on the Mercury News and East Bay Times websites will count.

Winners are announced each Friday on the Mercury News and East Bay Times websites and in the print edition of the Mercury News and EB Times sports sections.