LAHORE-Master Paints, Diamond Paints and FG Polo recorded wins in the Bank Alfalah National Open Polo Championship 2021 matches played here at the Lahore Polo Club ground on Saturday.
Marcos Panelo excelled in Master Paints’ narrow 7-6 triumph over Remounts. Panelo was star of the day for Master Paints with fabulous four goals while Juan Cruz Losada contributed with a brace and Farooq Amin Sufi one goal. For Remounts, Ignacio Negri cracked a quartet while LD Imran Shahid and Vieri Antinori scored one goal apiece.
Remounts started the match by thrashing in two back-to-back goals to have 2-0 lead while just before end of the first chukker, Master Paints converted one to reduce the margin to 2-1. The second chukker was identical to the first one, where Remounts again hit a brace against one goal by Master Paints to stretch their lead to 4-2.
Remounts added one more goal in their tally in the beginning of third chukker to make it 5-2 while Master Paints made a good comeback by thrashing in two back-to-back goals to reduce the deficit to 5-4. Remounts continued their habit of scoring the opening goal of every chukker and this time, they fired in a field goal to gain a 6-4 lead. Master Paints smashed in two back-to-back goals to level the score at 6-6. In the fifth and last chukker, the only and decisive goal was scored by Marcos Panelo, which helped Master Paints win the match 7-6.
The great team work helped Diamond Paints defeat Barry’s 6-4 in the second match of the day. Raul Laplacette, Ramiro Zaveletta and Mir Huzaifa Ahmed slammed in a brace each in Diamond Paints’ win while Ernesto Trotz converted all the four goals for Barry’s.
Both Diamond Paints and Barry’s were off to a flying start as they converted two goals each to draw the score at 2-2. Diamond Paints played better polo in the second chukker by striking a brace against one goal by Barry’s to have a slight lead of 4-3. The third chukker was fully dominated by Diamond Paints, where they hit two goals to stretch their lead to 6-3. No goal was scored in the fourth chukker while the only goal of the fifth and last chukker was converted by Ernesto Trotz to make it 6-4.
The third encounter of the day proved to be a thriller, where after a tough fight, FG Polo beat team Risala 7-6. For FG Polo, Francisco Bensadon smashed in superb six goals while Jamie Le Hardy struck one. For team Risala, Dylan Rossiter hammered four goals while Abdul Rahman Monnoo and Pedro struck one goal each.
FG Polo made a good start in the third encounter of the day by banging in a brace to take 2-0 lead. They added one more in their tally in the beginning of second chukker to increase their lead to 3-0. Risala bounced back by hammering a hat-trick to level the score at 3-3. The third and fourth chukkers were dominated by FG Polo as they converted a brace each to gain 7-3 lead while Risala slammed in three goals in the fifth and last chukker to make it 7-6, thus lost the encounter by just one goal margin.
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