Silver Cup Finals
Santa Barbara Polo Club
Scott Wood’s ERG Polo team outran Lucchese today to win the Piaget Silver Cup 16-7. A year ago, Lucchese dominated ERG in the 2010 Pacific Coast Open final, but today ERG had the horsepower to turn the tables on Lucchese for the Piaget Silver Cup victory.
This is is the first year the the Silver Cup has been vied for a Santa Barbara, and all the teams raised their level of play for this prestigious tournament. Both teams were rocking and rolling in the first half, and the first chukker had goals from 6 of the 8 players. Lucchese had a slim lead 5-4 after the 2nd chukker, but in the 3rd chukker ERG held the usually high powered Lucchese offense scoreless while reeling off 4 goals to take a lead of 8-5 into halftime. ERG blew the game wide open in the 4th chukker, as Sebastian Merlos and Paco de Narvaez controlled the ball well in the mid field and then sent Miguelito Torres on the run for three quick goals. ERG brought more horses then anyone other team and it looked like they were using them to best advantage, as they were running at a high rate of speed for most of the match, and every time a Lucchese player would head out for a pass there was always an ERG defender there to chase them down.
Torres put in another goal in the 5th chukker to seal the deal, and after that it was all ERG, as Lucchese would be unable to score the last 2 chukkers. Final score was ERG 16, Lucchese 7. MVP was Miguelito Torres, who was high scorer of the match and whose explosive runs to goal made a huge difference in the game. BPP was Carta Blanca, ridden by Paco de Narvaez and owned by Scott Wood.
Also today, there were two bracket games in the Lucchese America Cup. Grants Farm found their rhythm against Mansour and won 14-7. Unfortunately Jared Sheldon of Mansour had a horse trip and fall with him in this match and had to sit down with a cracked collarbone. In the Audi vs Piaget game at 3pm, Melissa Ganzi’s Piaget team narrowly beat Marc Ganzi’s Audi team 11-10
The Lucchese America Cup continues on Friday, updated schedule below:
Friday August 5
2pm Lucchese vs Mansour
4pm ERG vs Audi
Byes for first round winners, team practice offered at club fields at 10am
Sunday August 7
1pm Lucchese vs Grants Farm
3pm ERG vs Piaget
Byes for first round losers, team practice offered at club fields at 10am
Friday August 12
10am Practice offered at the club for teams not in semifinals
2pm Semifinal: #1 in Bracket I vs #2 in Bracket II
4pm Semifinal: #2 in Bracket I vs #1 in Bracket II
6:30pm PCO draw
Sunday August 14
10am Practice offered at club( for losers of semifinals)
1pm Lucchese America Cup Final
3pm Consolation game (for teams who did not make semifinals)
