October 26th through 29th Virginia Polo hosted our annual Fall Invitational. True to the nature of intercollegiate polo, teams are composed of different players each year as some graduate and new players are added. This four day tournament is a great opportunity for teams compete and size each other up, giving plenty of time for them to refocus attention on strengths and weaknesses before the Spring competition season heats up.
This year the men’s division consisted of teams from UVA, University of Kentucky, Cornell, and Georgetown and the women’s division featured teams from UVA, University of Kentucky, Cornell, and Texas A & M. Set up in an every-other-day schedule to give the ponies a day of rest, the women started the tournament off on Thursday and played finals on Saturday, the men’s divisions played both Friday and Sunday.
It was an exciting year for the tournament, with many new players in the ranks and a new team from Georgetown in the men’s division.
The UVA women started off strong with a Thursday victory over Cornell. Fourth year Julia Hersh, second year Mackenzie Craig, and first year Pippa Harris made their debuts in the game, helping the team to secure the win and a place in the finals on Saturday. The finals proved to be fierce competition playing against Texas A&M’s strong team. The UVA women kept the score neck and neck throughout the game, coming up short by one point at the final horn. Not a bad first competition for a team with only one veteran player, team captain third year Alana Benz!
The UVA men also began the tournament with a victory, defeating the new Georgetown team in the 6pm game. First year Gaston Gomez made his debut in this game, and helped the team secure the win and move onto the finals on Sunday with Vlad Tarashansky captaining. In Sunday’s game the UVA Men took on the UK Men and both teams playing hard and keeping the score close throughout the game, with an even 6 to 6 score in the third chukker. Though Vlad scored two goals in the final chukker, UK took the lead with three goals from Joe Schwartz, sealing the Fall Invitational Victory for the UK Men.
The weather was warm and the scenery was gorgeous with fall leaves at peak color at the Virginia Polo Center. Thank you to all the teams who traveled to Charlottesville to compete!
