The Washington Power's Gary Gait was the big winner in the NLL's Player of the Week awards for Week Five, bagging Overall and Offensive honors for his nine-goal onslaught against the New Jersey Stom a week ago.

Gait's goal total placed him just one shy of the single-game record his brother, Paul, set in 1994 and he himself tied in 1999. His twelve points helped Washington to a 21-9 thumping of the Storm.

Also honored were Buffalo's Steve Dietrich, Defensive Player of the Week, and Ottawa's Andrew Leyshon, Rookie of the Week.

Dietrich faced down a late New York Saints rally on Sunday without allowing a goal in the tight final few minutes, stopping 43 of 56 shots and scooping up ten loose balls over the course of the evening. The Bandits won that game, 16-13.

Leyshon, though, did the most with the least, stopping 60 of 72 Toronto Rock shots last Friday. The Rebel lost the game, 12-6, but it wasn't on account of the young substitute for usual starter Matt Disher -- Leyshon, after all, did record a save percentage of 0.833 in his very first professional game.

With the awards, Gait adds to a hardware collection which already includes more than a half-dozen Player of the Week Awards, four Most Valuable Player trophies, five Player of the Month plaques, the 1991 Rookie of the Year award, and eleven first-team All-Pro honors. This is Dietrich's fifth player of the week award. For Leyshon, it's his debut on the top players list.