The American summer season has ended in dramatic style. Audi USA beat the Greenwich-based White Birch team 14-13 in sudden-death overtime on Sunday 6 September to win the 2015 East Coast Open and the Perry Cup, in front of more than 3,000 spectators at the Conyers Farm polo grounds in Greenwich, Connecticut.
The line-ups
- White Birch: patron Peter Brant, who founded the Greenwich Polo Club, with Argentine nine-goalers Mariano Aguerre and Hilario Ulloa.
- Audi USA: patron Marc Ganzi, American eight-goaler Nic Roldan, and Argentine nine-goaler Miguel Novillo Astrada.
The final
White Birch controlled the first half and the early part of the second. Ulloa was the star of the day: he scored ten of his team’s 13 goals, most of them set up by Aguerre, one of the top-ranked players in the world. Audi answered in the fourth and fifth chukkers, scoring several goals to trade the lead back and forth.
The decisive moment came in the last minutes of the sixth. Novillo Astrada converted a penalty to level the match at 13-13, which forced a sudden-death seventh period. In the first few minutes of that extra chukker Roldan took a pass from Ganzi and scored the winning goal. Novillo Astrada was named most valuable player for his part in the comeback.
The final was televised on NBC Sports Network, scheduled for the evening of the same day, which brought the East Coast Open to a wider audience than the sellout crowd on the day.
Why this one stood out
White Birch have a long record of success in this championship and had led for long periods, which made the comeback more striking. For Audi, who had won the USPA Gold Cup in Florida in March with an overtime penalty from Gonzalito Pieres, it was another extra-time triumph in a year when they seemed to thrive on tight finishes.
Marc Ganzi has built a side that is increasingly comfortable under pressure, and a 14-13 scoreline with an overtime winner is about as good an advertisement for twenty-goal polo as you could ask for.
Sources: Greenwich Sentinel
