Ellerston beats UAE 11-10 in overtime of Hublot Gold Cup match in Spain.
(Photo courtesy of Gonzalo Etcheverry)
Ellerston (Johnny Williams, Ali Patterson, Gonzalo Pieres and Facundo Pieres) scored an 11-10 overtime win over UAE (HH Sheikha Maitha Al Maktoum, Jack Richardson, Lucas Monteverde and Pablo MacDonough) in Monday’s Hublot Gold Cup action at the Santa Maria Polo Club at Sotogrande, Spain. The victory earned Ellerston a berth in Thursday’s semifinals where they will join a Dubai team (Martín Valent, Patricio Cieza, Luis Domecq and Adolfo Cambiaso) that qualified with its third win of the season over HB Polo (Ludovic Pailloncy, Sebastian Pailloncy, Ignacio Toccalino and Pite Merlos).
In other Monday action, Ayala scored a 17-10 win over Dos Lunas and Royal Salute beat El Rosario 16-12.
For the second time this season, however, there is a deadlock for the final two semifinal positions forcing a shootout to take place on Tuesday morning between HB Polo, UAE and Ayala (Inigo Zobel, Guillermo Willington, Pablo MacDonough and Juan Jauretche), each team possessing a 2-1 record.
HB Polo had scored Gold Cup wins over Scapa (10-7) and Halcyon Gallery (9-8) while losing to Dubai (11-9) in Sunday action; UAE downed Dos Lunas (12-11) and Royal Salute (11-10), suffering their loss to Ellerston (11-10 in overtime); and Ayala racked up wins over Royal Salute (16-14) and Dos Lunas (17-10) while falling to Ellerston 15-11.
Both Dubai and Ellerston will be looking for their second high-goal championships with the season opening Bronze Cup going to Dubai and Ellerston taking the Silver Cup (Ellerston didn’t compete in Bronze Cup play). The remaining two semifinalists will be looking for their first titles of the season.