Three brackets in 20-goal Joe Barry Memorial Cup
By Alex Webbe
A handful of players trickled into the International Polo Club’s Seventh Chukker for the tournament draw for the 2016 20-goal Joe Barry memorial Cup.
Nic Roldan and Jeff Hall were back from the Aspen World Snow Polo Cup in Colorado; Julio Arellano was back in Florida after a summer at the Big Horn Polo Club in Wyoming; Facundo Obregon; Jesse Bray were huddling with Palm Beach Illustrated publisher Terry Duffy; and Valiente’s Roberto Zedda was on hand to represent Job Jornayvaz’s Valiente team as players an team associates took part in the first public draw of the 2016 IPC polo season.
On the basis of the draw, the ten teams were divided into three brackets with
Audi – Millarville (Grant Ganzi, Nic Roldan, Julian Mannix and Freddie Mannix), Orchard Hill (Steve Van Andel, Facundo / Polito Pieres, Peke Gonzalez and Lucas Criado), Dubai (Rashid Albwardy, Carlos Gracida, Diego Cavanagh and Alejo Taranco) and Valiente (Bob Jornayvaz, Roberto Zedda, Santi Torres and TBA) comprising Bracket I.
Coca-Cola (Gillian Johnston, Sugar Erskine, Julio Arellano and Steve Krueger), La Indiana (Michael Bickford, Joao Paulo Ganon, Ruki Baillieu and Tommy Biddle), and Villa del Lago (Jim Zenni, Guille Aguero, Hilario Ulloa and Agustin Obregon) making up Bracket II.
Bracket III will consist of Tonkawa (Jeff Hildebrand, Gonzalo Deltour, Sebastian Merlos and Mason Wroe), Enigma (Jerome Wirth, Jeff Hall, Matias MacDonough and Carlucho Arellano) and Palm Beach Illustrated (Nacho Badiola, Jared Zenni, Facundo Obregon and Jesse Bray).
The teams will play within their bracket in Bracket I with cross bracket play between Bracket II and Bracket III teams.
Tournament play is scheduled to begin on Saturday, January 9th with Orchard Hill returning as the 2015 defending champion. The tournament final has been scheduled to be played on Sunday, January 24th.