Bruin’s hat trick earns him MLS Player of the Week honours

Will Bruin is, through, the first seven weeks of the MLS season, the leading candidate for Rookie of the Year honours. With a hat trick in Houston’s 4-1 win D.C. United on Friday, Bruin earned Player of the Week honours after the votes from the North American Soccer Reporters were counted. Bruin became only the player in MLS history to notch a hat trick in his rookie campaign. Bruin now has four goals on the year and has been a regular threat as Houston shows that its playoff miss last season was an aberration, and the club is already on the way back to being one of the power franchises in MLS. The Dynamo has lost just one of its first seven matches. Bruin, a first-round pick from the University of Indiana, scored his first career goal in an April 10 win over the Vancouver Whitecaps. How The 11 voted: Bruin. Can’t vote against a hat trick. Brad Evans got the second place vote for scoring twice and providing the cross for Alvaro Fernandez’s goal in Seattle’s 3-0 win over Toronto FC. But, because Toronto FC put on one of its poorest displays in team history — and that’s saying something, because the four-plus years worth of TFC matches have produced more than their fair share of low lights — Evans can’t be placed ahead of Bruin. In Week Five, The 11 voted for Chris Pontius ahead of NASR winner Luke Rodgers. Pontius had scored twice against TFC, but we got a lot of e-mails and Tweets suggesting that we had overvalued the D.C. United candidate because he did his damage during another poor TFC performance. So, The 11 listened to its fanbase, and gave Evans, if you will, a TFC handicap. Some thought was also given to submitting TFC keeper Stefan Frei’s name for consideration. Yes, the Reds lost 3-0 to Seattle. But, if not for a series of spectacular saves from Frei, the scoreline would have been the most severe in club history. Frei committed acts of larceny on Fernandez, Evans and Fredy Montero — and the three goals conceded are in no way an indictment on his performance.