Lechuza downs Audi 8-6 to win US Open Championship
By Alex Webbe
Everyone in the crowded stadium at the International Polo Club in Wellington was expecting a knock-down drag-out battle between Audi and Lechuza in the US Open championship. After all, it was just less than a month before that Audi snatched victory from the jaws of defeat by tying Lechuza in the finals seconds of the USPA Piaget gold Cup Championship before going on to score an overtime win.
“The first chukker of the game will be the most important,†said Rodrigo Andrade, the talented 8-goal Brazilian who has been anchoring the Audi lineup from the Back position.
“If we’re not ahead in the third and fourth chukkers, we won’t win,†said Audi team captain Marc Ganzi, and both Andrade’s and Ganzi’s words proved to be prophetic.
Audi found themselves trailing 3-1 after the first chukker, and behind 6-2 after the first chukkers of play as they fell to a soaring Lechuza team 8-6 in the US Open finals.
A clearing miscue by Audi’s highly-touted Brazilian 8-goaler, Rodrigo Andrade, led to Lechuza’s first goal of the game with Lechuza team captain Victor Vargas scoring in the first 40 seconds of the game. Sapo Cased made it 2-0 just a minute later. Audi finally got on the scoreboard with a penalty conversion from 10-goaler Gonzalito Pieres, but Lechuza closed out the first chukker scoring with a 110 yard shot through the goal posts from Lechuza’s 10-goaler, Juan Martin Nero. Lechuza left the field with a 3-1 lead with Audi struggling to find its offensive punch.
Audi pressed the attack in the second chukker, but couldn’t pull the trigger. Audi missed at least four goals in the second period alone with every member of the lineup misfiring on what appeared to be sure goals. Gonzalito Pieres scored on another penalty shot. Despite a defensive effort that kept Lechuza from scoring, Audi continued to trail, 3-2.
The first goal of the third period came off of a penalty shot from Caset. After tapping the ball into play, Caset rocketed the ball through the Audi goalposts from 130 yards out for a 4-2 lead. Lechuza went up, 5-2, on Caset’s third goal of the match and a bewildered Audi team rode off the field at the end of the first half trailing Lechuza by three goals.
Audi tried to take control of the game back in the fourth chukker, but Lechuza would have none of it. Attack after attack was pushed aside, defensive shots thwarting every Audi effort, and brilliant teamwork between Caset and Nero ruled the day.
“I thought Nico (Pieres) looked a little tight in the first half,†said polo veteran Julian Hipwood. “And it didn’t look like Gonzalito (Pieres) had gotten into the rhythm of the game yet,†added the former 9-goal captain of the English polo team.
Caset drove the ball across the front of the Audi goal, dropped it for Nero who necked it through the goalposts to make it 6-2 after four chukkers of play.
A penalty conversion by Caset and a goal from the field from Nero ran the Lechuza lead to six goals, 8-2, with Audi looking like a shell of the team that captured the 2011 USPA Piaget Gold Cup. Gonzalito Pieres scored on his third penalty shot of the match, but at the end of five chukkers of play the Audi team that had averaged almost thirteen goals per game trailed Lechuza 8-2 without a single goal having been scored from the field.
A different Audi team returned to the field for the final chukker, with Nico Pieres scoring the first goal of the period in the opening minute of play. Two minutes later Andrade split the goal posts to make it 8-5, and at the 2:22 mark, Nico Pieres scored again for an 8-6 score, but that would be where it would end. With Audi trying to make up a lot of lost ground, the final horn sounded and Victor Vargas and his Lechuza team captured their first US Open Championship in an almost fitting tribute to the horses that died just two years earlier.
Juan Martin Nero was named MVP while Rodrigo Andrade’s 12-year-old chestnut gelding, Zoltan, garnered Best Playing Pony honors. Sapo Caset’s horses were named “Best String in the Openâ€.
The 2011 US Open was Lechuza’s third consecutive major tournament final and victory gave Lechuza its second title (Lechuza won the C. V. Whitney and lost to Audi in overtime in the Piaget Gold Cup finals) of the season.