The individual awards conclude with this announcement, but we still look forward to the always interesting 2014 Game of the Year Contest which will begin soon!
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GM Wesley So (STL)
Although there were several reasonable candidates for this spot, the actual winner could not be debated as GM So simply out shined all his competitors by a healthy margin and was the easy choice to receive this award. That said several of the other All Stars, for one his teammate GM Le Quang Liem (STL), GM Andrey Stukopin (RIO), NM Richard Francisco (ATL), NM Karthik Ramachandran (DAL), NM Levy Rozman (MAN), and Aaron Jacobson (NJ), all would have been reasonable candidates for this award if not for his incredible performance.
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NM Kevin Mo (CAR)
NM Mo seemed like a very good choice for this honor as after a very tough first season (against admittedly very stiff opposition), he rebounded nicely in 2014, putting together a winning record, a nice turn around, and one which was certainly useful to the Cobras in staying in the playoff hunt til near the end. Carolina has definitely not had an easy go of it in recent seasons, but in 2014 really improved upon things, putting together a much better record and a squad that no one was taking for granted when playing against. Should he and the team continue to improve in 2015, they might well return to the playoffs for the first time since 2008.
When considering players who played in 2013 who drastically improved on their overall performance in 2014, there were frankly not a ton of great candidates. The closest one behind Mo was likely FM Cameron Wheeler (SF) who, after having a losing record in 2013, turned things around into making it to the All Star Team in 2014. And while this was definitely a nice change, weighing his performance in 2014 versus his entire USCL history, it just seemed that Mo’s improvement was more pronounced.
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And that concludes the individual awards for the 2014 USCL Season. What comes up next is the 2014 Game of the Year Contest so stay tuned as details for that will be announced in the next couple of days along with the wildcard games for the contest soon afterwards!