Bendabout Opens Silver Cup with a Win
By Alex Webbe
After six chukkers of back and forth battle, it would take an overtime goal from Bendabout team captain Gillian Johnston to secure an opening round win in the 2009 USPA Silver Cup at the 302 Polo Club in Aiken Sunday morning.
Bendabout, which had gone winless in the Monty Waterbury Cup competition got its largest goal production in the match and needed every one of them as MavOffice.com took them into overtime before the match was decided.
Bendabout gave MavOffice one goal by handicap to start the game, but by halftime had taken a narrow 6-5 lead.
Owen Rinehart and Tom Uskup exchanged goals in the fourth frame, as Bendabout maintained the one-goal edge, 7-6.
Goals from Johnston and Galindo extended the lead to 9-6 in the fifth before MavOffice responded. Single goals from Tiger Kneece and Horacio Onetto cut the lead back to a single goal, 9-8, as the chukker ended.
Scoring went back and forth in the sixth, with MavOffice goals coming from Uskup and Julian Daniels. A penalty goal from Galindo and another goal from Gillian Johnston put Bendabout on top before a Kneece goal knotted it at 11-11, forcing the overtime.
Just 28 seconds into the sudden-death overtime period, Gillian Johnston scored her third goal of the game to give Bendabout its first win of the Aiken 20-goal season and a 1-0 record in Silver Cup play.
Hector Galindo led all scoring with six goals, with teammates Owen Rinehart and Gillian Johnston adding three goals apiece.
Horacio Onetto set the pace for MavOffice with four goals. Teammate Tiger Kneece scored three times. Tom Uskup scored twice with Julian Daniels accounting for a single goal in the loss.
Silver Cup play will continue on Wednesday, October 7 with a noon game between Barrington and Pony Express.