NEWS

Casablanca and Flexjet will play for the coveted National Twenty Goal^® Tournament trophy Tuesday, November 21, at 10:00am ET at Grand Champions Polo Club in Wellington, Florida. In front of a packed house on a perfect day for polo, Casablanca held on for a thrilling 10-9 victory over Newport and Flexjet defeated Santa Clara 10-7 in Sunday's semifinal round. It will be a rematch of last year's final between Flexjet (Melissa Ganzi, Jason Crowder, Nic Roldan, Jared Sheldon) and Casablanca (Grant Ganzi, Juancito Bollini, Julio Arellano, JJ Celis) and will be livestreamed on the USPA Polo Network on uspolo.org. In last year’s final, Flexjet rallied in the last two chukkers outscoring Casablanca 6-1 to win 11-8.

Casablanca, making its sixth finals appearance, is looking to sweep the 20-goal fall tournaments and win its fourth tournament of the season. The foursome of Grant Ganzi, Juancito Bollini, Mike Azzaro and Julio Arellano captured the North American Cup with a hard-fought 11-9 victory over Audi (Guille Aguero, Brandon Phillips, Marc Ganzi, Carlucho Arellano). Azzaro was named Most Valuable Player. Casablanca also won the US Trust Cup and USPA Fall Classic.

It was all Casablanca (Grant Ganzi, Juancito Bollini, Mike Azzaro, Jeff Blake) in the first half outscoring Newport (Gene Goldstein, Sugar Erskine, Julio Arellano, Lucas Arellano), 2-1, 2-1 and 4-1 for an 8-3 halftime advantage. In the second half Newport started reeling them in, shutting them out in two chukkers and outscoring Casablanca, 2-0, 3-2 and 1-0. Azzaro's clutch Penalty 4 conversion in the fifth chukker gave Casablanca a 10-8 lead which turned out to be the winning goal after Julio Arellano converted a Penalty 3 with 1:03 left in the game. Ganzi took possession and ran out the clock.

"It was a tough game, you have to give credit to Newport, they played really, really well," Grant Ganzi said. "It's always tough to play against Sugar [Erskine] and Julio [Arellano] because they work so well together. We played well, had some good moments and we're in the finals but I think we can do better. We need to minimalize our mistakes.”

"Jeff was the most solid player on our team," Ganzi continued. "He made the least mistakes and held the back down. He made some really key plays that maybe not everyone would notice because they weren't flashy but they were really important plays."

Casablanca got balanced scoring from its lineup; Ganzi and Azzaro each had three goals, Bollini had two goals and Blake added one. Julio Arellano scored a game-high four goals for Newport. Sugar Erskine added three goals and Gene Goldstein and 17-year-old Lucas Arellano each had one goal.

Santa Clara (JJ Celis, Lala Laplacette, Luis Escobar, Carlitos Gracida) started off with a 2-0 lead on handicap in a defensive first half with Flexjet (Melissa Ganzi, Jason Crowder, Alejandro Novillo Astrada, Juan Bollini) leading by one at the half, 4-3. Astrada got hot in the second half, scoring five goals in the fourth chukker to give Flexjet comfortable 9-4 and 10-5 leads going into the final chukker, where Santa Clara outscored them 2-0 but couldn't make up the deficit. Alejandro Novillo Astrada finished with a game-high seven goals. Melissa Ganzi had two goals and Jason Crowder added one. Luis Escobar led Santa Clara with two goals.

"I think this is a good team and has a chance in the final, it should be a close game," said Novillo Astrada, who was scheduled to return to Argentina on Monday to play in the Argentine Open Semifinal. He is expected to be replaced by Pablo Dorignac for the final.

"We started the game very well but we were unable to score some goals," Novillo Astrada said. "Luckily in the fourth chukker we opened up the game. We beat them down in that chukker and controlled the game.