Albert Dikwa earns USLC Player of the Week honors

From Riverhounds SC and USL Championship reports

Riverhounds SC striker Albert Dikwa was named the USL Championship Player of the Week, presented by Konami eFootball, for Week 2 of the season after bagging his first career hat trick in the team’s 3-1 win Saturday at Memphis 901 FC.

Dikwa, 25, scored a career-high 11 goals a season ago and is off to a hot start with his second multi-goal game as a member of the Hounds. He started early against Memphis, scoring his first goal in the fifth minute on a scramble in the box that began with a Hounds free kick. He scored his second on a penalty kick in the 39th minute and sealed the win for the Hounds with a one-touch finish to cap an end-to-end attacking move in the 71st minute.

This is the second Player of the Week accolade in Dikwa’s career; he also earned the honor in Week 5 of 2022 after his first two-goal game against Tulsa. The hat trick was the 12th in Riverhounds history, but just the fourth to come away from home — the last time a Hounds player scored a road hat trick was July 25, 2014, when José Angulo scored three in a 5-2 win at the Real Salt Lake Reserves.

Dikwa received 53 percent of the vote to win the award, edging out former Hounds forward Tyler Pasher of Birmingham Legion FC, who received 31 percent of the vote cast by the USL’s National Media Panel.

With the award, Dikwa also will be part of the USL Championship Team of the Week to be announced later today.