Trey Lewis is Southeast Missouri's football MVP

Trey Lewis is the fans' pick as Southeast Missouri's football MVP.

The Sikeston senior quarterback was picked by more than 3,000 fans, a little more than a third of those who voted in our fourth annual survey. Jacob Farmer of Fredericktown and Luke Uding of Valle Catholic both got more than 2,000 votes apiece and finished second and third out of 10 nominees.

Trey's big season helped land Sikeston in the state semifinals for the second year in a row. He ran for 1,411 yards on just 118 carries and threw for 1,546, making him the area's only athlete to pass and rush for more than 1,000 yards this season.

Past winners of the award are Juqualin Wiggins of Sikeston in 2009, Brandon Bourbon of Potosi in 2008, and Waylon Sparkman of Perryville in 2007.

The final results and bios of all 10 nominees are posted at this link, and click here to see how they compared in the final leaders list of the season.

No more guessing: Southeast is in the playoffs

With a little less than 24 hours before the full announcement of the FCS playoff field, Southeast found out its fate.

The Redhawks are in.

Southeast (9-2) clinched the Ohio Valley Conference championship — its first — and a spot in the FCS playoffs — also a first — after Jacksonville State lost Saturday to Tennessee Tech. JSU's loss left Southeast alone at the top of the OVC standings, which means the Redhawks earned the OVC's automatic berth for the FCS playoffs.

Twenty teams will be awarded playoffs spot, and the win left Southeast in position to earn a first-round byes. Pairings will be announced Sunday.

In-depth stuff for basketball junkies

Our Basketball HQ page is mostly together and up on the site now, and it's the place where we'll throw anything and everything basketball-related as the season goes along. For now, there are plenty of links to last season's scores, tournaments, rankings, photos and more, and those will be updated once the new season gets into full swing.

The annual SEMO Top 25 preseason poll comes out Monday, along with the return of the SEMO Top 10 for girls teams. Those will be updated weekly after that.

Click here for the Basketball HQ home page, and check back for more features soon, including more updates to team pages and an extensive timeline of Southeast Missouri basketball history that's being put together now.

Two tournaments are set as basketball season closes in

Coaches determined the brackets last week for the Arcadia Valley Thanksgiving Tournament, and this week the lineup was set for the Lion's Roar Tournament at Senath-Hornersville.

Both tournaments are among a handful that get the season going in full swing later this month.

Not every Southeast Missouri boys team will open its season with tournaments, and for a full look at schedules, longtime basketball historian Al Jackson has compiled his annual detailed list of the area's boys teams and schedules. Take a look at the full list (in Word document form) at this link.

Several tournaments and event schedules have already been posted in the forum, with several more to come in the next few days. Click here for the list.

And as always, look for our preseason SEMO Top 25 basketball poll in less than two weeks.

Park Hills Central picked to win its first Arcadia Valley title

Park Hills Central has never won the Arcadia Valley Thanksgiving Tournament, but coaches have picked the Rebels to end that streak this year.

Central was given the No. 1 seed in the eight-team tournament Wednesday, the first bracket to be set for the upcoming varsity boys basketball season. The annual tournament starts Nov. 22, with semifinals Nov. 24 and finals on Nov. 25.

The Rebels finished second to Arcadia Valley last season, victims of a lopsided 79-48 championship game on Thanksgiving Day. Arcadia Valley is seeded No. 3 in this year's field behind No. 2 Lesterville.

Fourth is South Iron, followed by West County, Ellington, Clearwater and Bismarck.

Two weeks in and 6,000 votes later ...

We're just two weeks into voting for the SEMO MVP Award, and 6,000 fans already have made their choice in our fourth annual survey. We're on track for the biggest voting total so far with at least another week remaining to vote for Southeast Missouri's high school football MVP.

A trend that's raised questions (including a few accusations) is the sudden spike in votes for individual nominees over a short period of time. It's happened a few times in the past two weeks of voting, and it happened today.

But it's not cheating. It's not deception. It's just clever marketing.

Thanks to social media sites, word of our SEMO MVP Award has spread across Facebook and Twitter for the past 13 days. And as social media junkies know, the right post to the right friends at the right time can generate plenty of action (and, in this case, SEMO MVP Award votes).

In the past, nominees have gotten waves of quick votes through announcements at football games, in faculty meetings, on radio stations and in newspapers.

But it's not cheating.

And to make sure it's a fair and accurate count, vote totals of each nominee are checked each day to be sure they're not manipulated through multiple votes or spamming from an individual IP address. Cheating won't happen, and if it does, it'll be addressed and corrected quickly.

But until voting ends (when each nominee's season ends), there's nothing wrong with spreading the word. It's fair game.