NWSL: FC Kansas City's Lauren Holiday voted player of the week

The NWSL announced Tuesday that FC Kansas City's Lauren Holiday was voted the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) Player of the Week for Week 17. Holiday scored her league leading 11^th and 12^th goals in the Blues 3-2 win over Portland Sunday.

The Blues midfielder leads the NWSL in both goals (12) and assists (9) and is a leading candidate for league MVP. While this is the first NWSL Player of the Week for Holiday, she was voted the Player of the Month for June.

How we voted

The NWSL Player of the Week and Month are voted on by media who regularly follow the NWSL. When possible we will reveal how we voted.

For each vote, the NWSL provides a list of players nominated by their teams. Media members are not required to vote for one of those players and this week is a perfect example of that. Nicole Barnhart was FC Kansas City's nominated player.

1. Nicole Barnhart - Barnie made 5 saves including a couple rapid point-blank saves for the win.
2. Carli Lloyd - Two goals in two games, one to secure a tie and one for a win
3. Inka Grings - Grings had two goals for the Red Stars to keep Chicago's playoff hopes alive.

While Holiday is very deserving of the award, our number one vote went to Barnhart. If I had voted for another FC Kansas City player that was not nominated, it probably would have been for Erika Tymrak. Officially she only had one assist although she did help create both goal scoring opportunities for Holiday and the one assist was a beautiful flick through to set up her team mate.