Magual and La Irenita remain unbeaten in Argentine qualifier

By Alex Webbe

Magual (Alejandro Muzzio, Marcos Di Paola, Facundo Sola and Jaime Huidobro) remained undefeated after its second day of competition in the playoffs for the Hurlingham Open and the Argentine Open after downing La Vanguardia (Juan M. Zavaleta, Valerio Zubiaurre, Manuel Crespo and Diego Araya) 15-12 Wednesday afternoon at Palermo, Buenos Aires.

Magual charged out of the opening throw-in, taking a 3-0 lead after the first period on goals from Facundo Sola (penalty conversion), Marcos Di Paola and Alejandro Muzzio while shutting out the stunned La Vanguardia foursome.

Muzzio added two more goals to open the second chukker and Sola’s second goal of the match gave Magual a commanding 6-0 advantage.  Valerio Zubiaurre finally got La Vanguardia on the scoreboard, trailing 6-1.

Goals from Manuel Crespo and Zubiaurre cut the Magual lead to three goals, 6-3.  Goals from Sola (penalty conversion) and Muzzio had Magual back in front by four when a final goal from Diego Araya (penalty conversion) ended the chukker with La Vanguardia behind by three scores, 8-5.

Both offenses cooled off in the fourth.  Di Paola put Magual on top, 9-5, with his second goal of the game.  Sola ended the chukker with a penalty goal for a five goal, 10-5 lead.

Muzzio and Sola (penalty conversion) scored single goals in the fifth period, extending the Magual lead to seven goals, 12-5 before Zavaleta put the ball through the goalposts for La Vanguardia.  With two chukkers left in regulation time La Vanguardia was down by six goals, 12-6.

Jaime Huidobro converted a penalty shot in the sixth for his first score of the day, with consecutive penalty goals from Araya ending the chukker with Magual still leading, 13-8.

La Vanguardia looked to be staging a comeback with the first three goals of the seventh period.  Araya scored once from the field and converted a penalty shot while teammate Zubiaurre’s third goal had La Vanguardia within two goals of Magual, 13-11.  Sola and Muzzio quickly dampened any thoughts of an upset with single goals, 15-11.  Araya scored the final goal of the match for La Vanguardia but it was Magual who took the game, 15-12.

La Irenita 16, Trenque Lauquen 14

La Irenita (Lucas Criado, Santiago Chavanne, Matias Macdonough and Thomas Garcia del Rio) improved their record to 2-0 with a 16-14 win over Trenque Lauquen (Salvador Ulloa, Juan Garcia Grossi, Guillermo Willington and Agustin Nero) in round two of the qualifying round of play at Palermo.

Both teams fought evenly throughout the opening chukker, ending in a 3-3 tie. 

Trenque Lauquen moved ahead in the second, scoring twice while holding La Irenita scoreless.  After two periods of play,  Trenque Lauquen was in front, 5-3.

La Irenita got serious in the third, outscoring Trenque Lauquen 4-2.  After three periods the game was all even at 7-7.

Trenque Lauquen was outscored 6-2 in the fourth and fifth chukkers as they fell behind 13-9.  It appeared that La Irenita had found its rhythm and Trenque Lauquen was running out of steam.

La Irenita (2-0) stretched its lead to six goals in the sixth, 16-10, before coasting to a 16-14 final victory. Trenque Lauquen (0-2) suffered a second consecutive loss.