FC Buffalo’s players and staff were polled for the fourth-consecutive year to find out who would win four postseason awards, while a supporters’ poll was conducted for a fifth award.
One player won three of the five awards. Who? You’ll have to read on to find out…
Best Offensive Player: Ian Mort
2012 winner: Mike Reidy
2011 winner: Mike Reidy
2010 winner: Richie Wilson
Mort’s five goals placed him atop the 2013 leaderboard and his attacking flair was a big hit with supporters. Mort added an assist over the course of the season, meaning he played a direct role in more than 25 percent of the team’s goals. He received nearly 70 percent of the vote for this award.
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Best Defensive Player: Bobby Ross
2012 winner: Josh Hall
2011 winner: Corey Phillips
2010 winner: Mbwana Johnson
Ross (pictured above, left) won by the slimmest of margins, one vote, over fellow defender Nick Garcia (right). His crunching tackles and strong positional play were lauded in the press and the Grand Island native and College at Brockport star also scored one of the best goals of the year with a half-field run in Zanesville. Chris Walter finished third in the voting.
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Unsung Hero: (tie) Brian Knapp and Bobby Ross
2012 winner: Patrick Zelko
2011 winners: (tie) Andrew Larracuente and Joshua Faga
2010 winner: John Grabowski
Brian “BK” Knapp was the unquestioned veteran voice of the team and fought through several injuries to be a major factor in 2013. His wizardy on-the-ball was complemented well by hard-nosed play off it. Ross becomes the second player (Faga, 2011) to win the Unsung award while also winning one of the more sung-about awards. That’s respect. Two players came within a vote of making this a four-way tie: Steven Carcaterro and Chris Walter.
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Supporters Choice Award: Ian Mort
2012 winner: Matt Stedman
2011 winner: Joshua Faga
2010 winner: (tie) Daniel Stevens and Eric Steinmetz
Maybe it was the salsa dance after his goal versus Detroit City, his propensity to get stuck into any tackle or just his “no quit” attitude that scored a brace in the season’s disappointing end versus Erie, but Mort’s in good with you guys with a third of the final vote. Knapp finished second with 12 percent while six players snagged 6-7 percent of the vote each: Chris Walter, Andrew Coughlin, Ben Ramin, Andrew Bednarsky, Anthony Rozzano and Kareem Gray.
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Most Valuable Player: Ian Mort
2012 winners: (tie) Mike Reidy and Andy Tiedt
2011 winner: Joshua Faga
2010 winner: Daniel Stevens
What? Compliment a player for a third time over such a short post? We’re not in the business of trying to grow players’ heads. Congratulations to Ian, who won the MVP award by a single vote over three players: Knapp, Ross and goalkeeper Andrew Coughlin. Here’s hoping all four players are back to vie for the award in 2014.
Email: wolf@fcbuffalo.org
[…] (Grand Island, N.Y. // The College at Brockport) was voted Best Defensive Player and Unsung Hero, the latter along with Brian Knapp, in the 2013 team awards. And late last week he committed to […]