Stumptown Footy PTFC Player of the Week: Volume 2

Welcome back, intrepid reader, to the second edition of Stumptown Footy’s Player of the Week. We took a week off to re-work the format. This time, instead of having a fan vote, we all just picked someone we thought had a great week, and wrote a few words about why they stood out to us.

For clarity, these picks cover both Sinco de Mayo PTFC matches; Portland Thorns vs Seattle Reign, and Portland Timbers at San Jose Earthquakes.

Will Conwell: Jeff Attinella -- The Timbers put in a strong defensive performance from front to back, but it was Attinella who came up big on several occasions to preserve the clean sheet on Saturday and make sure that the Timbers had every chance to bring home all three points. Attinella won’t be winning Save of the Week honors, but he stepped up when the Timbers needed him.

Tyler Nguyen: On a messy night for the Thorns all over the field, Kelli Hubly was the one consistently making decisive interventions on defense to prevent the worst. Hubly regularly prevented crosses from getting sent in from Seattle’s right flank and allowed Klingenberg to push on and have a greater influence on the game. No one on the team could finish without Betos making a mistake and seemingly no defender made it through the game without a horrific error, except the one who’s about to get dropped. She capped off her night by clearing Fishlock’s shot off the line in the 71st minute.

Richard Hamje: In the most exciting soccer game played in Portland this year, Lindsey Horan’s determination was a big reason why. She missed the third equalizer off the crossbar, kept Seattle pinned into their defensive third for most of the last fifteen minutes, and fed her teammates repeatedly for chances. She also scored.

Katelyn Best: I’m going to second Richard and go with Horan here. If she’d managed to put away one more of her ten shots in this game, we’d still be having the Horan-as-Greg Jennings conversation of a few weeks ago. She did everything she physically could to find the draw and was literally an inch away from equalizing in the 55th minute.

Timm: Jeff Attinella -- He’s only started two matches this season, both clean sheets and he has saved every shot he’s faced. He’s been a rock at the back and if it wasn’t for a few keen saves, Portland could have walked out of Avaya stadium with less than 3 points. He’s not the flashiest keeper in the the league - but he comes up big when needed.

Tell us what you think of our picks and who your player of the week was in the comments!