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The 10th annual Casa de Campo Copa Semana Santa presented by CasaLife magazine is really starting to heat up…
Here Calixto García-Vélez, Director of Polo and Equestrian for Casa de Campo and manager of sports for The Sporting Life, gives us an overview of the games played this weekend on Saturday afternoon, April 12th.
Beautiful day for polo, by Calixto García-Vélez
After a much needed soft rain the players arrived to a beautiful verdant polo fields in great condition and a sunny breezy day.
Match #1 El Pitirri vs Chamuscada
A very open fast polo match with exciting play from both teams and some wonderful long runs to goal. Denis Santana was a more effective player as he replenished is polo string compliments of Mr. Tony Rivera. He complimented very well with a very solid Cesar Crespo who scored seven goals including the goal of the match on a end to end run with an incredible cutshot from 80 yards.
Julio Lopez was much more effective on offence as he had the tough job marking Denis Santana. Rafa Perez Diez continued his good play at back for El Pitirri cutting off numerous Chamuscada scoring opportunities.
In the end the strong play of Cesar Crespo set up the two go ahead goals for Chamuscada giving them the win 10-9. A very close match which could have gone into overtime.
Match #2 La Lechuza vs SBG
In the second match, La Lechuza vs SBG, the game was a bit more choppy and the play much more physical.
Anton Tejeda continued his impressive play from Thursday and a very well mounted Johnny Alvarez was the key to their win. Johnny was very well complimented by a veteran of high goal polo competition Alfredo Vargas, whom one must say is the best mounted player in the tournament.
Pedro Pablo Cabrera played very well on both offence and defence and showed that he is one of the future stars of Dominican polo.
SBG had many scoring opportunities but kept wasting them by not taking their time and controlling the play. They are very well mounted, but showed a bit of inexperience on their attacks to goal.
Juan Crespo although not having his best day was the leading scorer with five goals.
In the end the game ended as it began, tied except for the two handicap goals awarded to La Lechuza. If La Lechuza continues their strong play I wonder if there will be some handicap changes next year?
Next matches Tuesday April 15
3pm La Lechuza vs El Pitirri
5pm Chamuscada vs SBG
Semi-finals: Thursday April 17th, 3pm & 5pm
Final and celebration: Saturday April 19th, from 3pm