Galaxy defender Omar Gonzalez is named MLS rookie of the year

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For the second year in a row, a Galaxy defender has been selected as Major League Soccer’s rookie of the year. In 2008, it was Sean Franklin. Today it was Omar Gonzalez.

The former NCAA champion from the University of Maryland was a starter in all 30 regular-season games and compiled a team-high 2,672 minutes while helping the Galaxy cut its goals-allowed total from 62 in 2008 to 31 in 2009.

Gonzalez, 21, from Dallas, was a mainstay of the back line for Los Angeles but also scored one goal and assisted on another as the Galaxy ended a three-year barren spell by reaching the playoffs for the first time since 2005. He has started both playoff games and likely will start when the Galaxy plays the Houston Dynamo in Friday night’s Western Conference final at the Home Depot Center.

At 6-foot-5 and 210 pounds, Gonzalez is widely seen as a future U.S. national team player, having already played for his country in the Under-17 World Cup in Peru in 2005 and for the Under-20 national team at the PanAmerican Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2007.

-- Grahame L. Jones