La Irenita and Magual score blowout wins in today’s qualifiers at Palermo

By Alex Webbe

In a game that was never in question, the 32-goal La Irenita (Lucas Criado, Santiago
Chavanne, Matias MacDonough and Tomas Garcia del Rio) foursome ran off with a
15-11 win over La Vanguardia (Juan Zavaleta, Ezequiel Martinez Ferrario, Manuel
Crespo and Diego Araya) as the Playoffs for Hurlingham and Palermo continued Friday
afternoon at Palermo, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Tomas Garcia del Rio converted three penalty shots in the first while the La Irenita
defense held La Vanguardia to a single goal from Diego Araya. After the first seven
minutes of play, La Vanguardia trailed 3-1.

Three more goals from Garcia del Rio in the second were answered by another single
goal from Diego Araya, and La Irenita extended its lead to four goals, 6-2.

Tempers rose early in the fourth chukker with La Irenita’s Santiago Chavanne receiving
a yellow card and La Vanguardia’s Ezequiel Martinez Ferrario earning a red card and
an ejection from the match. Six goaler Benjita Araya took Ferrario’s place and play
continued. Garcia del Rio scored his seventh goal of the game with teammate Matias
MacDonough scoring his first goal of the game for a 9-5 La Irenita advantage. La
Vanguardia picked up single goals from Juan Zavaleta and Diego Araya, but continued
to trail by four goals.

Three more Garcia del Rio goals in the fifth period extended the La Irenita lead to six
goals. Diego Araya scored the only goal of the chukker for La Vanguardia in a 12-6
match.

La Irenita appeared to ease up on their horses in the sixth chukker, but still managed
single goals from Chavanne and Criado. Diego Araya and Benjita Araya each scored a
goal, but La Irenita continued to dominate in a 14-8 contest.

Diego Araya scored his seventh and eighth goals of the game in the final chukker
and teammate Crespo added a goal as La Irenita managed one last goal in the 15-11
beating.

Magual 12, Trenque Lauquen 8

In another blowout, Magual (Alejandro Muzzio, Marcos Di Paola, Facundo Sola and
Jaime Huidobro) manhandled Trenque Lauquen (Salvador Ulloa, Juan Garcia Grossi,
Guillermo Willington and Agustin Nero) 12-8 to record their first win of the playoffs.

Magual was all over Trenque Lauquen lurching out to a 5-1 lead after the second
chukker and 7-1 after the third.

The two teams played even in the fourth, each picking up a pair of goals, but Magual
continued to dominate with a 9-3 advantage.

Two Magual goals in the fifth went unanswered as Magual trotted off to an eight goal,
11-3 lead. Through the first five chukkers of play, Trenque Lauquen could muster no
more than three goals as they were truly out-classed in the match.

Trenque Lauquen outscored Magual 5-1 in the final two goals, but it was evident that
Magual was effectively resting their ponies for next Wednesday’s meeting with La
Vanguardia (0-1). When the final bell sounded it was Magual on the winning end of a
12-8 score.

Nor more playoff action is scheduled until Tuesday when Chapa II (1-0) is scheduled to
meet Sauvaterre (0-1) at 2pm followed by a match between La Aguada/Las Monjitas (1-
0) and Las Praderas (0-1) at 4pm.