Anyway, one year later, both teams featured a few changes. Joaquin Pittaluga, who played (and won) with La Irenita in 2013, now played with La Esquina. Matías MacDonough was not able to play today, and was replaced by Alfredo Cappella, who, by the way, became La Irenita's key man and top scorer, with nine goals. By the way, another young and talented player, La Esquina's Diego Cavanagh, was his team's top scorer, as well, with seven goals. Which means that there were a total of 16 goals out of 23 scored between Alfredo and Diego.
La Irenita dominated the match and the score thoroghout the seven chukkers of play. They took an early 2-0 lead in the first chukker, and despite La Esquina cut the margin to one goal in second period (2-3), La Irenita imposed their team play, led by the lethal Alfredo Cappella on attack, and a very good performance of their back, Clemente Zavaleta. By half time, La Irenita had a 9-5 advantage.
However, La Esquina was not about to give up that easily: commanded by a great Diego Cavanagh, who scored three goals in two chukkers, La Esquina managed to cut the La Irenita lead to just one goal (9-10) with only seven minutes remaining.
Joaquín Pittaluga scored La Esquina's single goal in that last chukker; meanwhile, La Irenita made an impressive comeback, with Alfredo Cappella adding three more goals to seal the final 13-10 win.
Score La Irenita: 2-0, 3-2, 6-4, 9-5, 10-7, 10-9, 13-10
Scorers:
La Irenita: Juan Ruiz Guiñazu 1, Juan Martín Zavaleta 3 (2 on penalty shots), Alfredo Cappella 9 (4 on penalty shots and 1 corner)
La Esquina: Diego Cavanagh 8 (3 on penalty shots), Joaquín Pittaluga 2, Rodrigo Rueda Jr. 1
BPP: Irenita Vero (ridden by Alfredo Cappella)
Best Polo Argentino Bred: Gete Salsa (ridden by Pascual Sainz de Vicuña)
Alfredo Cappella: I am very happy. This has been a great year, I feel I can't ask anymore else. Now, I need to keep playing and improve, work to do my best.
It was not easy to win this match; La Esquina presented battle, it is a very tough team, but fortunately we could score in the last chukker and win the match.
Clemente Zavaleta: It was a balanced match, La Esquina is a great team. I know all of La Esquina's players because I play a lot with them in other countries. I've played with Rodrigo, Diego; we won with Joaquín last year. The fact is that we remained concentrated, our horses worked very well. Fortunately, we were lucky enough to make it in the last chukker.
I guess this has been the best year of my career; however, I haven't realized that much about it, I have to keep going. Last year I won, and I didn't have my handicap raised; maybe they don't raise me this year... But we have all the organisation back gain this year, because I want to improve, play the qualifiers. I won the US Open, which was almost a miracle, I brought my horses from the US.
On a personal side, I was fortunate enough to win with my cousin; we lost some finals, so it's good for us to win today. I also want to thank my father-in-law, Birger Strom, who's going thorugh a difficult time; and to my cousin: I dedicate this win to both of them.
I hope they raise my handicap... I guess all of the 6-goalers who played the final this year as well as last year deserve it... well, that's my opinion. There were 20 teams this year, so I think it would be very good... otherwise,we have to keep going...