Click here to view more photos from the ladies tournament.
The San Diego Polo Club hosted their annual women’s tournament on October 6 and 7. SDPC member Tracee Mulvaney took a leadership position in organizing the tournament including inviting women out, providing all of the trophies for each player, arranging horses and providing housing for several of the ladies, she did receive much help from Alisha Wray and Jessica Bailey to make things easier. The tournament was broken down into three flights with the C Flight intended for more novice players, with some of the SDPC arena players trying grass polo for the first time. Jessica Bailey and Abi Abel provided the C Flight teams with instruction and opened the game up for them. The B Flight had more advanced players and the Flight was for more advanced players who also wanted to bring in a little pro power to speed things up.
A photo of many of the ladies who participated in the tournament. Click here to view more photos from the ladies tournament.
Saturday’s action started with the C Flight where the ladies played chukkers one and two and finished Sunday with chukkers three and four. Saturdays action saw the Gladiator Girls II get out to a fast start as Sara Barnett scored the only goal of the first chukker, Katie Neglia tied it up for the San Diego Girls in the second but the Gladiators got back to back goals from Rhoda Hoppes and she just missed a third straight as she couldn’t finish in the mouth of the goal but teammate Yvonne Sorour finished it off leaving them up 4-1 at the halfway point.
We resumed with the second half on Sunday with the Gladiators Barnett taking the ball out of the first bowl in and scoring. Barnett then took the next ball out of the lineup and headed to goal unable to finish she left it on the doorstep where Rhoda Hoppes finished with the goal making it 6-1. Katie Neglia put one in for the San Diego team, her score was promptly answered with another goal from Sorour making it 7-2 Gladiators going into the last chukker. The San Diego squad seemed all but finished at this point but Abi Abel scored cutting the margin to four, that goal was followed by three straight from Katie Neglia, all on long runs to bring them back to within one. They controlled the ball with hopes of overtime but time ran out on them as the Gladiator Girls II finished off with a 7-6 victory. The teenaged Katie Neglia took home the MVP award with five goals in the match, and Sierra was named Best Playing Pony for the match, Sierra is owned by Tracee Mulvaney and was played by Sara Barnett.
In B Flight action Liquid Ice was dominating in defeating Rancho Amisted as Jenn Martin scored once, Susan Harris scored four and the MVP Savannah Broderick scored six.
For the A Flight we had four teams, the Gladiator Girls led by leading scorers Tracee Mulvanee and Jocelyn Parker defeated Princeps/Adeptus/Ohana to advance to the Sunday finals and Madison Square/MonteVerde defeated O C Polo to get into the Sunday finals match.
In the finals between the Gladiator Girls and Madison Square/ MonteVerde the first chukker was full of action as Madison/Verde received goals from Kate Weber and Ellen Greenhill but the Gladiators answered with three goals of their own, one each from Jessica Bailey, Mulvaney and Jocelyn Parker to take a 3-2 lead. In the second chukker Bailey extended the lead with a score but Greenhill and Weber scored again making it even at the half. Weber scored again in the third, but the Gladiators got another goal from Bailey and two from Jocelyn Parker to take a 7-5 lead going to the final chukker. Parker scored first in the fourth to extend the lead, but Kate Weber was not done yet as she scored two more goals to get back to within one goal. Madison Square/Monte Verde had one last chance to tie the match and send it into overtime but they narrowly missed an open goal penalty with nine seconds remaining. The MVP in the A Flight was Kate Weber and Best Playing Pony honors went to Jocelyn Parker’s third chukker horse Aster.
Gladiator Girls from left to right: Tracee Mulvaney, Jessica Bailey Mano, Joy Bancroft and Jocelyn Parker. Click here to view more photos from the ladies tournament.
The tournament was great as players each Flight played well beyond expectations. Tracee Mulvaney gave each of the players a San Diego Polo Club Polo Rocks tank top, trophies and catered lunch and dinner from the famous Polo Bar at Scalinis on Saturday and Alisha Wray and Steve Crowder providing lunch on Sunday. It was an exciting day as the players also visited the Tiki Bar to watch the Triple Crown of Polo on ESPN 2 where it was announced that the San Diego Polo Club will host one leg of the TCP starting in 2008
Click here to view more photos from the ladies tournament.
Source: Scott Lancaster, Manager of SDPC.