By Alex Webbe
In a game that was never in question, the 32-goal La Irenita (Lucas Criado, Santiago Chavanne, Matias MacDonough and Tomas Garcia del Rio) foursome ran off with a 15-11 win over La Vanguardia (Juan Zavaleta, Ezequiel Martinez Ferrario, Manuel Crespo and Diego Araya) as the Playoffs for Hurlingham and Palermo continued Friday afternoon at Palermo, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Tomas Garcia del Rio converted three penalty shots in the first while the La Irenita defense held La Vanguardia to a single goal from Diego Araya. After the first seven minutes of play, La Vanguardia trailed 3-1.
Three more goals from Garcia del Rio in the second were answered by another single goal from Diego Araya, and La Irenita extended its lead to four goals, 6-2.
Tempers rose early in the fourth chukker with La Irenita’s Santiago Chavanne receiving a yellow card and La Vanguardia’s Ezequiel Martinez Ferrario earning a red card and an ejection from the match. Six goaler Benjita Araya took Ferrario’s place and play continued. Garcia del Rio scored his seventh goal of the game with teammate Matias MacDonough scoring his first goal of the game for a 9-5 La Irenita advantage. La Vanguardia picked up single goals from Juan Zavaleta and Diego Araya, but continued to trail by four goals.
Three more Garcia del Rio goals in the fifth period extended the La Irenita lead to six goals. Diego Araya scored the only goal of the chukker for La Vanguardia in a 12-6 match.
La Irenita appeared to ease up on their horses in the sixth chukker, but still managed single goals from Chavanne and Criado. Diego Araya and Benjita Araya each scored a goal, but La Irenita continued to dominate in a 14-8 contest.
Diego Araya scored his seventh and eighth goals of the game in the final chukker and teammate Crespo added a goal as La Irenita managed one last goal in the 15-11 beating.
Magual 12, Trenque Lauquen 8
In another blowout, Magual (Alejandro Muzzio, Marcos Di Paola, Facundo Sola and Jaime Huidobro) manhandled Trenque Lauquen (Salvador Ulloa, Juan Garcia Grossi, Guillermo Willington and Agustin Nero) 12-8 to record their first win of the playoffs.
Magual was all over Trenque Lauquen lurching out to a 5-1 lead after the second chukker and 7-1 after the third.
The two teams played even in the fourth, each picking up a pair of goals, but Magual continued to dominate with a 9-3 advantage.
Two Magual goals in the fifth went unanswered as Magual trotted off to an eight goal, 11-3 lead. Through the first five chukkers of play, Trenque Lauquen could muster no more than three goals as they were truly out-classed in the match.
Trenque Lauquen outscored Magual 5-1 in the final two goals, but it was evident that Magual was effectively resting their ponies for next Wednesday’s meeting with La Vanguardia (0-1). When the final bell sounded it was Magual on the winning end of a 12-8 score.
Nor more playoff action is scheduled until Tuesday when Chapa II (1-0) is scheduled to meet Sauvaterre (0-1) at 2pm followed by a match between La Aguada/Las Monjitas (1-0) and Las Praderas (0-1) at 4pm.