Monday, April 13, 2009

Ricketts Named MLS Player of the Week

Donovan Ricketts was named the MLS Player of the Week on Monday after keeping a clean sheet in his MLS debut on Saturday night. Ricketts, who had missed the first two games of the season with a groin strain, made five saves in the game, becoming the third Galaxy goalkeeper to earn a clean sheet on his MLS debut.

His best saves of the night came in the first half when he dove to his left to parry away a Paulo Nagamura drive and in the 40th minute when he blocked a Jesse Marsch effort with his leg from close range.

Prior to Ricketts, the only Galaxy goalkeepers ever to be named the MLS Player of the Week were Jorge Campos (Week 7, 1996) and Kevin Hartman (Week 22, 1999 and Week 27, 2002). In all of MLS history, goalkeepers have been named the league’s Player of the Week just 37 times, with Kasey Keller also taking the award earlier this season. Prior to Keller and Ricketts this season, the last goalkeeper to win the Player of the Week award was Joe Cannon who did so in Week 25 of the 2006 season.

Donovan spoke to reporters after Saturday's game and had this to say about the game and his performance.

2 comments:

charlesj27 said...

Congrats, Donovan - Really you helped this team to keep a clean sheet! Good, Solid Job!!! Continue to heal, get more fit, stronger, and help the back-line as much as possible!

Anonymous said...

I agree Ricketts played a solid game.

We didn't see Miguel Benitez on the bench... what's the deal?

We had 40+ CSUDH Toro's in attendance waiting for the possibility of him coming on.

We love him and are proud of our ex-player.

Julie & Sam