The Baltimore Thunder’s Gary Gait is likely on his way to his third straight scoring title and fifth of his career and today he claimed the National Lacrosse League’s Player of the Week award.

Today’s announcement marks the third time this season that Gait, who celebrated his 32nd birthday yesterday, has won or shared the honor, and the seventh time since the award was created in 1994.

Pro indoor lacrosse’s League MVP each of the last four years, Gait totaled 13 goals and three assists in games on back-to-back nights this past weekend. On Friday evening in a battle between the two teams who came in tied for first place, Toronto had a 15-13 lead in the fourth quarter. However, Gait scored two of his four goals on the night with 2:09 and 1:10 respectively, left in regulation time to tie the game. The Syracuse University graduate entered the next evening’s home game against twin brother Paul and the Syracuse Smash -- Baltimore’s final regular season game -- with 41 goals. He went on to score nine times for his second straight 50+ goal season (he had 57 last year). Gait set a new record that night by taking 30 shots on goal.

The British Columbia product finished 1999 with 82 points (50 goals, 32 assists). With just one weekend left to play on the NLL schedule, he leads the league in scoring over teammate Joe Hiltz (80 points) and Paul Gait (68 points).

Runners-up for this week’s award were Colin Doyle of the Toronto Rock and goalie Dallas Eliuk of the Philadelphia Wings. Doyle, on the seat of his pants and with no helmet on, scored with 7.3 seconds left Friday night to help the Rock defeat the Thunder 16-15 and gain sole possession of first place. He also had seven assists. Eliuk, whose team would have been eliminated from the race for the final playoff spot with a loss, stopped 50 shots on Saturday and raised his save percentage to .763 to move into the league lead by .002 as the Wings edged New York in Philadelphia, 10-9.