D.C. United's Chris Pontius Named MLS Player Of The Week

For the third straight week, a D.C. United player was named MLS Player of the Week by the North American Soccer Reporters (NASR). This week, however, that player wasn't Dwayne De Rosario.Instead, Chris Pontius beat out four other players --including teammates De Rosario and Joe Willis, who we profiled elsewhere on the site--to take the honors after scoring twice in the Black-and-Red's 4-0 win over the Vancouver Whitecaps.

Pontius, who has started all 22 games for D.C. United this season and leads the team in minutes played (1,861 to be precise), received eight of the 16 first-choice votes cast by the NASR members. Milos Kocic of Toronto FC came in second with four first-place votes, while De Rosario, Willis, Philadelphia's Sebastien Le Toux, and Toronto's Torsten Frings received one vote each.

Pontius' two tallies gave him seven goals on the season and put him alone in second place on the club's goalscoring table, one behind Charlie Davies. You can see his first goal here, and his second goal here.

D.C. United return to action with a road match against the Chicago Fire Thursday at 9:00 p.m.