He didn’t have a victory to celebrate but Orlando City SC’s Cyle Larin still had a pretty impressive weekend, turning heads with a hat trick in the Lions' 5-3 loss at New York City FC on Sunday.
The top overall pick in January’s SuperDraft, Larin fired home goals in the 50th, 61st and 85th minutes to notch the first hat trick of his career. The Rookie of the Year frontrunner earned another accolade Tuesday, when he was voted the Major League Soccer Player of the Week by the North America Soccer Reporters (NASR) for Week 21 of the 2015 MLS season.
Larin twice brought Orlando back from one-goal deficits at NYCFC, leveling the match at 1-1 in the 50th minute and making it 2-2 just over 10 minutes later. Larin kept things interesting in the 85th, scoring a lovely, Goal of the Week-nominated strike to bring Orlando within one after David Villa and Thomas McNamara had scored to give New York a 4-2 lead.
The third goal nearly proved huge for Orlando, who saw Kaká hit the post in second half stoppage time directly before Mix Diskerud scored the final goal of the match in the 93rd minute.
Orlando will return to action Saturday night, when they host Columbus Crew SC at the Citrus Bowl (7:30 pm ET, MLS LIVE).
The MLS Player of the Week is selected each week of the regular season by a panel of journalists from NASR. The group consists of members of print, television, radio and online media.
