PRFC’s Asante named Player of the Week, 2 others make Team of the Week

After a 5-0 thrashing of LA Galaxy II on Saturday night at Wild Horse Pass, three Phoenix Rising players received weekly honors from USL Championship.

PRFC captain Solomon Asante was named Week 13’s Player of the Week, while center back Joe Farrell made the Team of the Week.

CB James Musa was also named to the TOTW as an honorable mention, meaning he would be on the bench of the proverbial 18-man team.

“Solo’s not just the captain. He’s a leader and he leads by being a good servant to his teammates and a good servant to the club,” manager Rick Schantz said after training on Tuesday. “He leads by example. He builds good relationships in the locker room.

“He’s showing that physically he’s still capable of doing the things that we want him to do. But he’s extremely intelligent about the match. I think he’s got a good relationship right now with either Darnell (King) or Noah (Billingsley) and he’s making it difficult for teams to decide what he’s going to do.”

Asante led the way for Phoenix with a goal and three assists, marking the third player to achieve that feat in USLC on the 2021 campaign.

You may want to mark Solomon Asante in the box.#RisingAsOne | #PHXvA pic.twitter.com/peB0Y9VVZu

— Phoenix Rising FC (@PHXRisingFC) July 18, 2021

The Ghanaian now has eight goals and six assists on the season, which sees him tied for first in assists and tied for second for the Golden Boot.

Farrell also notched an assist on a corner to his center back partner Musa.

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSE

James Musa puts us on the board.#RisingAsOne | #PHXvLA pic.twitter.com/S1zOjmMlo4

— Phoenix Rising FC (@PHXRisingFC) July 18, 2021

On the defensive side of things, the Philadelphia native — known as “Philly” in the PRFC locker room — cleared a ball off his own goal line, won five of six duels, all three aerial duels, made two interceptions and completed 44 of his 52 pass attempts (85%).

“Philly, I told him this morning in training and he was like, ‘Oh my gosh. Four years here and I’ve never made Team of the Week.’ He said nobody ever looks at our defense at Phoenix Rising,” Schantz said.

“I was pretty happy for him and I think Ben (Lundt) and the back four have really taken a lot of pride in getting the shutouts and being part of our offense and helping out the attack. We’re getting there. We’re getting better each week and that’s the focus right now.”

Phoenix Rising travels to San Diego to take on Pacific Division rival Loyal SC on Saturday.

Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m. and will be audio broadcast live on ArizonaSports.com and on the Arizona Sports app.

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