Resilient Newport Finally Ends Two-Year Dry Spell By Winning at Grand Champion

Newport broke their dry spell of no championship win in over two years with a win over the formidable Colorado team for the Grand Champions Club Tournament on 3rd Feb. Throughout the 12- Goal tournament; the general theme for the Newport’s game was “Comeback”. The same was the case for the final showdown with Colorado. The roller coaster of a match captivated the attention of the audience throughout and had everyone on the edges of their seats by the concluding chukker. Newport was just good enough to edge out Colorado by 1 and took home the title.

Newport V/S Colorado Michel Dorignac, whose five goals, all scored on penalty conversions including a 60-yarder in the sixth chukker, earned him the Most Valuable Player honors. Dorignac was aware of the challenges that Newport was facing with Colorado. During a post-match interview, he said: "We were at a disadvantage because we had a shootout on Thursday and all of a sudden we are in the final and didn't have time to organize a practice so we had to come to the final without a practice.”

Here is the squad composition of both the teams-

Newport	Colorado
Gene Goldstein +1	Rob Jornayvaz +2
Tomas Schwenke +2	Bautista Panelo +3
Michel Dorignac +6	Nick Johnson +3
Nick Manifold +3	Robertito Zedda +4

Both teams started at a level 0 in the first chukker. For the first two chukkers, the more balanced and conditioned team of Colorado controlled most of the action of the game, leaving Newport in a slump. They scored 4 times in the first and didn’t let Newport register anything on the scoreboard.

However, Newport displayed their famed resilience after getting thwarted in the 1st and 2nd by outscoring Colorado 3-1 in the 3rd. The score was 5-3 at the end of the 3rd, with Newport still trailing by 2. With Dorignac converting a 40 yard and a 30 yard penalty, Newport really got into their element in the 4th and commanded the lead for the first time in the clash with 7-5.

The 5th Chukker was a tussle and one could really feel the level of excitement that high-level polo matches like this one bring out of the audience. Colorado replied back in the initial part of the round by scoring 2 successive goals and leveling the scores. But, Newport was successful in scoring one goal to end the chukker at 8-7, leading with one goal going into the final chukker.

The 6th Chukker began with Dorignac scoring a 60-yard penalty and Newport now led with 9-7. Colorado was not able to realize plenty of generated opportunities and even with another goal scored by Robertito Zedda, they came up short and Newport sealed the victory by 9-8.