Player Of The Year

After the game on Saturday Class VI will award its Player of the Year award and the Pid Army will award its Defensive Player of the Year award. I thought I would tell you who I voted for and why.

First let's look back and who I named Player of the Game for the 27 games I've awarded it this year:

• Omar Cummings - 6 times
• Pablo Mastroeni - 4 times
• Marvell Wynne - 4 times
• Matt Pickens - 3 times
• Mehdi Ballouchy - 2 times
• Jeff Larentowicz - 2 times
• Drew Moor - 2 times
• Julian Baudet - 1 time
• Conor Casey - 1 time
• Claudio Lopez - 1 time
• The fans - 1 time (the KC home game mess)

For player of the year I already had a pretty good idea of who I would vote for and the review of my Player of the Game awards reinforced it. Omar Cummings is clearly the Player of the Year for the Rapids. He leads the team in goals and so many of them came at crucial moments to put the Rapids in the lead or to put a team away.

I know another favorite pick is Marvell Wynne, who has also been great. I think he's been so much more than we expected that he's picking up some votes there, but I'm not sure that means he was the best player. Pablo has had one of his best seasons as a Rapid in years, and if it weren't for Cummings great season he'd be my pick for Player of the Year.

For Defensive Player of the Year its a little less obvious. Wynne was Player of the Game often for both his defensive work and his offensive work. Matt Pickens has been solid but never really spectacular. I actually went with Drew Moor. Moor has not been flashy but he's been consistent. He's played every minute of every game and is the only player to start every match. (Larentowicz has 29 appearances but only 28 starts). Every game if you were asked to name the best defensive effort his name may only come up a handful of times, but if you were asked to name the best two defensive efforts I think his name would appear for pretty much every game. He's reliable, an ironman, and our Defensive Player of the Year.