Rochester / Section V High School Football Player of the Week: How Voting Works & How to Win

The number most campaigns in Section V don't know going in

Tyler Reger of Hilton won the Sept 23–29 2024 ballot with over 26,000 votes. That is a number worth sitting with before anything else: in a market where most people think of prep-football fan polls as a few hundred friends clicking a link, a single week of this ballot drew enough votes to fill Blue Cross Arena five times. The week after it, Matt Valicenti of Greece Olympia/Odyssey won with just over 11,000. The November 2025 winner, Duke Snyder of Alexander/Pembroke, drew over 12,000 in a week that spanned a state-quarterfinal result.

What those three data points tell you is that the Section V football vote is not a low-stakes one-school affair. The ceiling is 26,000 real votes in seven days. The floor, in late November when casual interest drops, is still 12,000. Any campaign plan that assumes a few dozen shares will carry a week has already lost to a school that treats Wednesday at 8 p.m. as a deadline worth building toward.

The thing most people arriving at this page don't know: the poll is run by the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, presented by Faber Builders, and closes on Wednesday evening Eastern — not Sunday like the statewide New York poll. That three-day gap changes the entire shape of a winning campaign. The week doesn't end when your school assumes it does.

What the confirmed nominee history actually shows

The Democrat and Chronicle's ballot draws from all 12 counties of NYSPHSAA Section V, which means the field can run from Aquinas Institute in the city to Avon's Kalman Dolgos in Livingston County to Penn Yan's Eli Raplee in Yates County — all in the same week. The Oct 20–26 2024 ballot had 15 nominees. The Oct 27–Nov 2 2024 ballot had nine. The November championship weeks narrow to four or five, because only title-game performances make the cut.

The class breakdown across confirmed weeks makes the enrollment-doesn't-decide point concrete. In November 2025, Duke Snyder of Class C Alexander/Pembroke won outright with over 12,000 votes — despite being nominated alongside programs from larger classifications. Avon's Kalman Dolgos appeared on multiple 2024 ballots as a Class D nominee against Class AA programs and was named the Class D championship game MVP in November. Pierce Dinkins of Alexander/Pembroke made the Oct 27 field with three touchdowns including two defensive scores.

The Catholic school question comes up often in this market because Aquinas and McQuaid loom large. Both compete under NYSPHSAA Section V — not in a separate Catholic league — so they appear on the ballot exactly as any public school does. Allen Nesmith's McQuaid win in Week 4 of 2024 (7,500+ votes, five touchdowns and 212 rush yards in a 38-27 win over Penfield) confirms that Catholic-school supporters mobilize as effectively as any public program in the section, sometimes more so, because McQuaid's network of alumni extends well beyond the immediate neighborhood.

How the Wednesday close reshapes a campaign's timeline

The two polls that most Rochester fans know about have different close days. The SI/SBLive statewide New York High School Football Player of the Week poll closes Sunday. The Democrat and Chronicle's Section V ballot closes Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern. Most people — including the families of nominees — don't realize the local poll is still open days after the statewide race is settled.

That Wednesday night deadline means the decisive hours of a Section V campaign run Tuesday and Wednesday — when most supporters have mentally moved on. The school that sends one more reminder Tuesday evening and another Wednesday afternoon is voting into a field that has already gone quiet. Early-season weeks like Reger's (26,000+ votes) show what happens when an entire community treats the full window as live; championship-week totals like Snyder's (12,000+ in late November) show that motivated campaigns can still move serious numbers even when general interest has narrowed to football die-hards.

Running a real Section V campaign before Wednesday night

Getting on the ballot starts earlier than most people expect. The Democrat and Chronicle's sports desk accepts nominations at sports@democratandchronicle.com. A submission that arrives by Sunday night — athlete name, school, position, stat line in full (yards, touchdowns, opponent, score), and a note on why the performance stands out — gives reporters what they need before the article is written. Nominations that arrive Monday risk coming in after the field is set.

Once the ballot is live, the math is reach, not repetition. The confirmed week totals — 26,000, 12,000, 11,000 — came from community-wide mobilization, not from one household clicking for seven days. Hilton's 26,000-vote week was driven by a genuine three-phase performance (offense, defense, special teams in one game) that gave supporters something concrete to share; the story traveled because the stat line was genuinely unusual, not just because someone posted a link twice.

The community topology matters here. A program like McQuaid or Aquinas draws on alumni spread across Monroe County and beyond — networks that are wide but need coordination to activate quickly. A program like Avon or Alexander/Pembroke operates in a tighter geography where a single group chat can reach a meaningful share of the entire fan base in an afternoon. Neither has an inherent advantage; the school that organizes its specific network for a Wednesday deadline wins. For campaigns that want to close gaps or extend a lead before the 8 p.m. close, structured vote-support campaigns exist for weekly uncapped polls of this type.

For more Section V context, the full Rochester market guide is at /usa/rochester-new-york/; other New York State prep sports polls are collected at /usa/new-york/; and the national directory of weekly high school sports fan votes lives at /usa/.