"Cylinder plays" in NFHS
 

As NFHS does not have the cylinder rule, what is the ruling on a play where a shooter takes normal shooting motion and makes contact to the defender's head? Assume that the elbows were perpendicular and not horizontal. This occurred on a catch and shoot from the corner, not a drive. There did not appear to be much contact on the play, but it doesn't take much contact to catch a defender's eye and draw blood.

I realize there were posts of this nature in 2017 with references to a POE in 2012-2103, but has anything changed?

Is this by rule an intentional foul per se?

Lastly, if a stationary defender straddles offensive leg and offense stands up, dislodging defender, is this a foul on the offensive player?

Both sound like incidental contact to me.

In NFHS rules, a defender does not have to give the offensive player any room to do anything. A defender can take any position on a ball handler or stationary opponent short of contact. It is the offensive player's responsibility to get around a defender with legal position. Assuming the defender in your play was in LGP (initially two feet on the floor, facing, short of contact, and not moving forward), this, by rule, can't be a defensive foul. If the offensive player clips the face of a vertical defender in LGP on the way up, it can only be an offensive foul. I would not go intentional with it, just player control, if anything. It could also be nothing.

The space a player has a right to is over his/her torso (verticality), not over extended feet. This is very clear with regards to setting screens and particularly block/charge plays....a player does not have a right to the space over a foot that is outside of his/her frame. Similarly, an offensive player doesn't get to claim extra space by widening his/her stance. If the offensive player voluntarily yields the space over a foot, there is no rule that says a defender can't occupy it. If a defender does so without fouling, an offensive player can't displace them form that spot.