Piaget and
Elangeni Ranch score opening wins in the USPA Fall Plate
By Alex
Webbe
Marc Ganzi
showed US Open form Friday afternoon as he led his Piaget team to a hard-fought
13-12 win over a talented Flat Out foursome.
Ganzi scored
the first three goals of the game (two from the field and one on a penalty
shot) before Flat Out got any traction under its offense.
A pair of
goals from Kris Kampsen and a penalty conversion from Paul Knapp tied it up at
3-3 as the first chukker ended.
Gene Goldstein
and Jota Chavanne tallied single goals for Flat Out in the second period, but
scores from Ganzi and Nic Roldan kept it all even at 5-5 after the chukker.
The score
went back and forth again in the third period with Kampsen scoring a go-ahead
goal for Flat Out before Ganzi responded with his fifth goal of the match. Sergio Sylvestre put Piaget back on top, 7-6
with his first goal of the match, but Chavanne managed to knot it up at 7-7 to
end the first half of play.
Ganzi
converted a goal to open the scoring in the fourth, putting Piaget up, 8-7, but
Flat Out was just getting warmed up. Kampsen
broke free from the Piaget defense and scored a pair of goals, and after four
chukkers of action, Flat Out boasted a narrow 9-8 advantage.
Roldan converted
a penalty goal for a 9-9 score, but Knapp’s second goal f the game put Flat Out
back on top, 10-9. Sylvestre responded
with another Piaget goal to end the chukker, leaving the score at 10-10 going
into the final chukker of play.
The sixth
chukker was no different from the earlier part of the game as the teams took
turns scoring. Ganzi scored the first
goal of the chukker, 11-10, with Knapp matching him with a penalty conversion,
11-11. Roldan scored from the field for
Piaget, 12-11, but Knapp responded with his fourth goal of the contest,
12-12. Fittingly, it was Ganzi’s eighth
goal of the game that delivered the knockout punch to a determined Flat Out
team, moving Piaget into Sunday’s finals.
Ganzi led
all scoring on the day with eight goals.
Roldan scored three times and Sylvestre scored twice in the victory.
Kampsen was
credited with five Flat Out goals. Knapp
scored four times and Chavanne added two goals.
Gene Goldstein added a goal in the loss.
Elangeni Ranch 8, Audi 6
In earlier
competition it was a balanced Elangeni Ranch attack that carried the day for
them as they scored a late 8-6 win over Audi in the USPA Fall Plate
competition.
Misha
Rodzianko replaced the injured team captain, Melissa Ganzi (shoulder), on the
Audi team and made a good showing of himself in the match, but Audi struggled
to find any consistency in its offensive efforts.
Jason
Crowder scored four times for the Audi team with single goals coming from Juan
Bollini and Joey Casey, but Elegani Ranch provided better teamwork in the long
run.
Elegani
Ranch held a narrow 3-2 halftime lead before Crowder tied it up at 3-3 in the
fourth. Audi managed a pair of goals in
the fifth, but the Elegani Ranch attack delivered two goals from Diego Cossio
and a single goal from J. J. Celis to take a 6-5 lead going into the final
chukker of play.
Crowder tied
it up at 6-6 with his fourth goal of the game in the opening minutes of the
final chukker, but Elangeni Ranch rebounded with Luis Escobar scoring the
go-ahead goal with time running out. A
backhander by Escobar to a streaking Celis gave Elegani Ranch a final goal as
time expired.
Celis led
the Elegani attack with three goals.
Escobar and Cossio scored two goals apiece and team captain Brian Street
added a goal for the win.
Crowder set
the pace for Audi with four goals.
Bollini and Casey added single goals in a losing effort.
Competition
in the 2011 USPA Fall Plate will continue on Sunday, October 9th at
9:30 am and 11 am with the finals and consolation final at the Grand Champions
tournament fields in Wellington.