Las Monjitas and La Albertina Victorious on Day Two of Hurlingham Open
The second day of play in the 2018 Hurlingham Open saw La Albertina defeat La Canada Angiocor-DRF 10-8, while Las Monjitas defeated Cria Yatay 14-10 at Hurlingham Club.
The opening game saw a valiant fight from La Canada as they looked to upset the higher rated La Albertina, but their inaccuracy throughout the game proved to be too much to overcome. Early in the game, La Albertina grabbed the two-goal lead behind goals from Francisco Elizalde and Ignacio Toccalino, while La Canada missed their three shot attempts from the field. The second and third chukkas saw fast-paced open polo from both teams, with La Canada creating more possessions, but La Albertina shooting a perfect 3 for 3 from the field to maintain their two-goal advantage. Jared Zenni scored his fourth goal of the game before the end of the first half, but La Canada was unable to close the deficit leading into the second half.
After Zenni’s fifth goal of the game on a penalty 2 conversion brought La Canada within one, they missed their first three shots of the second half allowing La Albertina to go on a run, scoring three consecutive goals, two of which coming off the mallet of Nic Roldan. Holding their largest lead of the game at 10-6 at the end of the sixth chukka, La Albertina protected their lead while La Canada made a late push, with two goals in quick succession from Zenni and Obregon. La Canada was unable to get any closer as their inaccurate 5 for 16 shooting from the field proved to be the difference in the 10-8 victory for La Albertina.
The second game of the day saw Las Monjitas produce a dominant opening half in a controlled victory over Cria Yatay. After the teams traded goals over the opening two chukkas, scoring one goal each from the field and the penalty line, Las Monjitas grabbed control of the game behind their quick running attack, scoring seven unanswered goals. All four players found the scoresheet during the run, with Sapo Caset leading the way with four opening half goals. Cria Yatay struggled to generate offense from the field, converting just two of their eight shot attempts in the opening half. Before the half was over, Cria Yatay’s Magoo Laprida was forced to leave the game and was replaced by Tomas Garcia del Rio as Cria Yatay was looking to overcome the 9-3 deficit with three chukkas remaining.
A strong fifth chukka from Cria Yatay saw Garcia del Rio make an instant impact, opening the scoring in the second half, while they shot a perfect 3 for 3 from the field to reduce the deficit to three. Any hope of a comeback was put to rest in a dominant sixth chukka for Las Monjitas as they outscored Cria Yatay 5-2. Three consecutive field goals for Sapo Caset, bringing his total to seven in the game, increased Las Monjitas’ lead to six with just one chukka remaining. Amassing 20 shots in the game, the Las Monjitas offense kept Cria Yatay on the defensive to complete the 14-10 victory.