The 2nd round of the Bombardier Pacific Coast Open was completed today under beautiful sunny skies at SBPRC. For some teams, the 2nd round games got them a little farther down the road to the finals, while for some the dream of making it to the finals encountered some speed bumps.
Defending PCO champion Audi and Mansour met in the first match. The game got off to a rough start, as both teams had a lot of foul trouble to begin with, and it took until halfway for the 2nd chukker for each team to score from the field, as all the early goals were foul shots. Adam Snow hit a neckshot through traffic for Mansour and Marc Ganzi retaliated with a field goal on the other end. In the 3rd chukker action slowed down again, with the only goal a penalty 2 shot from Martin Zegers for Mansour, who took a 4-3 lead into the halftime break. However, things opened up a lot in the 2nd half. The score stayed even throughout the 2nd half, with both teams lettting the ponies run in the 6th. Mansour held the lead with a little over a minute, after Martin Zegers took the ball from the lineup to goal to put Mansour ahead 10-9. But with a little less than a minute, Kris Kampsen, who has been very consistent on penalties all season, converted a penalty 4 for Audi to send it to OT. In OT, Juan Bollini went straight to the Mansour player on the knockin, which led to a loose ball that Audi worked into goal for the penalty 2. Kampsen made the penalty 2, Audi wins 11-10.
Grants Farm and Valiente met up in a good polo match, and competition between the cheering sections was as intense as the polo. Grants Farm jumped out to an early 6-1 lead, with Sugar Erskine especially throwing Valiente off balance with his trademark steals, but Valiente rallied to close the gap to 7-3 at halftime. Valiente steadily closed in on Grants Farm in the 2nd half, and Federico von Wernich brought them within two goals with a full speed coast to coast run at the end of the 5th. In the early minutes of the 6th chukker, Valiente’s Nacho Astrada brought Valiente into a tie with Grants Farm, sending both cheering sections to their feet. But Grants Farm came out of their doldrums and started winning the lineups again, and Andy Busch put them back in the lead, followed up by two quick goals from Jeff Hall and an insurance goal from Erskine. Despite a last second goal from Astrada, the comeback was not to be, and Grants Farm won 12-9.
Next up was the battle of the Texas teams, ERG and Lucchese. ERG dominated early, clicking on all cylinders to go to a 7-3 halftime lead. But Lucchese had some good ol’ Texas grit, and came out on fire in the 4th to come back within one goal. In the 5th, ERG once again showed their scoring prowess with goals from the high scoring duo of Paco de Narvaez and Gonzalo del Tour, but all out play from Lucchese, especially Mike Azzaro, kept things close in the 6th chukker. However, a costly penalty with a minute remaining gave ERG the insurance goal, and they went on to win 11-9.
Patagones and Zacara faced off in the final match of the day, which turned out to be a surprislingly low scoring game. Although the polo was open and fast, both teams seemed to have trouble finding the goal, and several saves inches from the goal mouth by Zacara’s Nicolas Pieres also kept the score low. In the end the teamwork of Patagones would win the day for them, as they always seemed to be in the right place to help one another and jump on loose balls, and they would win 8-6, led by five goals from Carlos Gracida.
The last round of bracket play is Sunday in the PCO, to determine who advances to the PCO semifinals and who will play in the Western Badge and Trophy (Subsidiary) semifinals.
