Apparently, fans of the National Lacrosse League found the league's official award winners quite deserving -- in the Outsider's Guide Fan Choice Awards balloting for Most Valuable Player, Rookie of the Year, Goalie of the Year, and First-Team All-Pro, the winners matched perfectly. However, several races were razor-thin, coming down to the final ballots counted.

John Tavares cruised to victory as the top player, drawing 258 points via mentions on 68 of 103 ballots. In second place was Rochester's John Grant, Jr., over one hundred points back in the 5-3-1 scoring system.

Grant himself scored quite a rout -- the first-year star was named on 90 of 102 ballots for Rookie of the Year, earning 238 points and out-polling runner-up Jason Clark by over sixfold. Clark's second-place finish was very much in doubt, however, with Buffalo D'Arcy Sweet falling just one point back, 37-36.

Just like in 1999, the Goaltender of the Year race was a two-horse race between Toronto's Bob Watson and Philadelphia's Dallas Eliuk. Unlike last year, however, Watson emerged the winner, 128 points to 100. Rochester's Pat O'Toole finished third, with a respectable 64 points.

Joining Tavares and Grant as the top five MVP choices among runners -- and thus earning a spot on the First-Team All-Pro squad -- are Toronto's Jim Veltman (92 points in MVP voting), Philadelphia's Tom Marechek (89 points), and Pittsburgh's Gary Gait (77 points). By winning the Goaltender of the Year award, Watson joins this quintet of top runners.

In the Coach of the Year voting, it was expected that the top vote-getters would be first-year coaches Terry Sanderson of Albany and Ted Sawicki of Buffalo -- the former led his expansion team nearly into the playoffs, while Sawicki led a reversal of the Bandits' disastrous 4-8 season in 1999. Neither disappointed in the voting, with Sanderson edging out a 31-29 win. Toronto's Les Bartley placed third, with 20 votes.

Following his dominance in the Most Valuable Player voting, Tavares unsurprising dominated the race for Attacker of the Year, earning recognition on 31 of 103 ballots. Grant and Marechek finished a distant second and third, respectively, but were only separated by one vote, 18-17.

Defenseman of the Year provided another tight race, with Rochester's Regy Thorpe running neck-and-neck with Toronto's Pat Coyle. In the end, Thorpe was able to record a 25-22 victory. Philadelphia's Matt Oglesby placed third, with eleven votes. Including votes for Dan Ladouceur and write-ins for Terry Bullen and Jim Veltman, four different Rock players were selected for this award, a testimony to the system that has served that club very well the past few seasons.

Josh Sanderson, freed up by father Terry's offensive system in Albany, claimed the Most Improved Player award, beating out Buffalo's Mike Accursi, Rochester's Tim Soudan, and New York's Roy Colsey.

Several ballots had to be discarded in part, due to voter error (failing to vote for all spots in a multi-vote category or voting for the same player multiple times in the same category). This is why voting totals vary across the categories. Following are the full results for each of the seven categories (w- indicates a write-in vote; "Votes" in the multiple-response categories refers to how many ballots the player was named on):

Most Valuable Player     1st    2nd    3rd    Pts  Votes
John Tavares, Buff        38     19     11    258     68
John Grant, Jr., Roch     18     14     15    147     47
Jim Veltman, Toro          9     11     14     92     34
Tom Marechek, Phil         9     12      8     89     29
Gary Gait, Pitt            7      9     15     77     31
Ted Dowling, Alba          3      9      9     51     21
Josh Sanderson, Alba       4      8      7     51     19
Roy Colsey, NY             4      1      5     28     10
Jake Bergey, Phil          1      5      7     27     13
Bob Watson, Toro           3      3      3     27      9
Mark Millon, Syra-Phil     2      4      3     25      9
Derek Malawsky, Buff       3      3      0     24      6
Paul Gait, Syra-Pitt       0      2      3      9      5
w-Dallas Eliuk, Phil       1      0      2      7      3
w-Pat O'Toole, Roch        0      2      1      7      3
w-Tim Soudan, Roch         1      0      0      5      1
Del Halladay, Syra         0      1      0      3      1
Vote for three (5-3-1 point system) - 103 ballots cast


Rookie of the Year       1st    2nd    Pts  Votes
John Grant, Jr., Roch     74     16    238     90
Jason Clark, Phil          6     19     37     25
D'Arcy Sweet, Buff         8     12     36     20
Kaleb Toth, Toro           4     17     29     21
Mark Frye, NY              2     12     18     14
Gary Rosyski, Alba         3      8     17     11
Pat Maddalena, Buff        2      6     12      8
Devin Dalep, Pitt          1      6      9      7
w-Bruce Codd, Alba         2      2      8      4
Gewas Schindler, Phil-NY   0      4      4      4
Vote for two (3-1 point system) - 102 ballots cast


Goalie of the Year       1st    2nd    Pts  Votes
Bob Watson, Toro          34     26    128     60
Dallas Eliuk, Phil        28     16    100     44
Patty O'Toole, Roch       15     19     64     34
Rob Blasdell, Alba         7     18     39     25
Derek Collins, Syra        8      4     28     12
Matt Disher, Buff          5     10     25     15
Gord Nash, NY              2      3      9      5
Devin Dalep, Pitt          1      2      5      3
Chris Levis, NY            0      2      2      2
Vote for two (3-1 point system) - 100 ballots cast


Coach of the Year      Total
Terry Sanderson, Alba     31
Ted Sawicki, Buff         29
Les Bartley, Toro         20
Tony Resch, Phil           9
Paul Day, Roch             7
John Tucker, Pitt          1
Pat Donahue, Syra          0
Scott Huff, NY             0
Vote for one - 97 ballots cast


Attacker of the Year   Total
John Tavares, Buff        31
John Grant, Jr., Roch     18
Tom Marechek, Phil        17
Roy Colsey, NY             9
Ted Dowling, Alba          8
Gary Gait, Pitt            7
Josh Sanderson, Alba       6
Paul Gait, Syra            3
Mark Millon, Syra-Phil     3
w-Tim Soudan, Roch         1
Vote for one - 103 ballots cast


Defenseman of the Year Total
Regy Thorpe, Roch         25
Pat Coyle, Toro           22
Matt Oglesby, Phil        14
Dan Ladouceur, Toro       11
Rich Kilgour, Alba         9
Steve Fannell, Buff        8
Kyle Couling, Buff         3
w-Terry Bullen, Toro       3
w-Jim Veltman, Toro        1
w-John Gagliardi, Phil     1
w-Phil Sanderson, Alba     1
Vote for one - 98 ballots cast


Most Improved Player   Total
Josh Sanderson, Alba      29
Mike Accursi, Buff        24
Tim Soudan, Roch          17
Roy Colsey, NY            14
Rob Blasdell, Alba         6
Shawn Williams, Toro       4
Chris Levis, NY            1
w-Tom Phair, Phil          1
w-Matt Disher, Buff        1
w-Neil Doddridge, Pitt     1
Vote for one - 98 ballots cast