Ellerston 10-goaler Gonzalito Pieres with the ball in their 14-7 romp over HB Polo.
(Photo courttesy of Gonzaly Etcheverry)
Ellerston (Johnny Williams, Ali Patterson, Gonzalo Pieres and Facundo Pieres) destroyed HB Polo (Ludovic Pailloncy, Sebastian Pailloncy, Ignacio Toccalino and Pite Merlos) 14-7, leading at one point by the score of 8-1 as they trotted into Saturday’s finals of the Hublot Gold Cup at Spain’s Santa Maria Polo Club at Sotogrande.
Ellerston took early control of the field, running out to a 3-1 second chukker lead before adding five unanswered goals as HB Polo watched helplessly. The teamwork of Gonzalo and Facundo Pieres were the Hallmark of the day as the team honed themselves for the tournament finals.
Facundo’s individual accomplishments this season date back to his win in the US Open Championship at the International Polo Club in Florida followed by a sweep of the English season with championships in the Queen’s Cup and the British Open. Teaming up with his brother on the Ellerston team in Spain, they scored a title win in their first tournament, the high-goal silver Cup and ride into Saturday’s final the clear favorite.
UAE 10, DUBAI 9
In the second semifinal match of the day UAE (Tommy Beresford, Jack Richardson, Lucas Monteverde and Pablo MacDonough) made their way past previously undefeated Dubai (Martín Valent, Patricio Cieza, Luis Domecq and Adolfo Cambiaso 10-9 to capture the other Hublot Gold Cup final berth.
Dubai stormed onto the Spanish high-goal polo scene with an opening Bronze Cup championship but faltered in Silver Cup play. After racking up an impressive 3-0 record in Gold Cup play with wins over Halcyon Gallery (9-7), Scapa (13-6) and HB Polo (11-9), Adolfo Cambiaso’s troops came up short in semifinal play against HH Sheikha Maitha Al Maktoum’s UAE contingent.
Saturday’s Hublot Gold Cup finals will be a rematch of Ellerston’s 11-10 overtime win in last week’s preliminary action. A victory would give Ellerston’s Facundo Pieres a sweep of Europe’s high-goal season with title wins in the Queens Cup and British Open in England and the Silver Cup and the Hublot Gold Cup in Spain.
The Sotogrande Gold Cup Final 2013 will be streamed live on www.pololinetv.com and Sat Aug 31, 2013 12:15pm EDT (and re-played again on Sat Aug 31, 2013 at 3:30pm EDT) and on http://www.hurlinghampolo.com.