We kicked off the second half of our season with Aloha Sunday in partnership with ilovemusubi.com. Joining us to help celebrate the Hawaiian theme was Maui’s finest polo player Kimo Huddleston along with his wife and daughters. His youngest daughter, Uakea, or known to most of us as Buddha stole the hearts of the audience as the 4 year old rode her new pony named Cappy around the polo field and greeting fans between matches.
Our intermission performances included Kimo Huddleston’s wife Stephanie and his daughters Illihia, Hi’ilawe dancing native Hawaiian hulas. They danced several dances together and ending with Stephanie doing a beautiful solo.
Our 3PM match featured Star Meadow/Monteverde versus Hanalei Bay. It was an evenly matched game with both teams rated 8 goals.
The National Anthem was sung by Lea Love of Hawaiian/ Samoan decent born and raised in San Diego. She has been singing and dancing all of her life and recently traveled to Tahiti with her Polynesian dance group.
The first ball was thrown in by Nino “Neens” Camilo, the founder of the I Love Poke Hawaiian Food Festival.
The first score of the game came from sponsor Krista Bonaguidi and answered quickly with a goal by Martin Ravina. In the second David Samaniego scored his first goal of the match for Hanalei Bay bringing the score to 2-1 in favor of Hanalei Bay. The next two goals were scored by Graham Bray and Martin Ravina with Hanalei Bay answering with a goal from Ashton Wolf tying the score for 3-3 at the end of the second chukker. Play started in the third chukkar with Martin Ravina scoring the first goal for Star Meadow/Monteverde and Ashton Wolf came up with the tying goal for a 4-4 score ending the play before half time.
Our champagne divot stomp was sponsored by Korbel California Champagne, with an island twist! Guests enjoyed pineapple mimosas as they stopped divots.
The second half started with Hanalei Bay’s Mariano Fassetta scoring his first goal of the match. The teams were so evenly matched and each defended their goals keeping scoring at a minimum. Mariano Fassetta scored again bringing the score to 6-4 and Star Meadow/Monteverde answered with a goal from Graham Bray ending the fourth chukker 6-5 with Hanalei Bay in the lead. Star Meadow/Monteverde was on fire in the fifth scoring 3 goals to Hanalei Bay scoring only one goal bringing the score to 8-7 Star Meadow/Monteverde.
The sixth had both teams running and Hanalei Bay scored two goals to Star Meadow/Monteverde scoring only one bringing the end of the sixth to a tie game creating overtime. Both teams went off to get horses ready for a seventh chukker. The winning goal was scored by Martin Ravina for a very exciting end to a great match.
The Seventh Chukker After Party featured Kieljhon Dela Pena from Waimea, on the Big Island of Hawai’i. He has been influenced from a wide variety of genres from Traditional Hawaiian and Folk to Pop, Hip-Hop, R&B and of course Reggae.
Thanks to Hula Girls Shave Ice and Jaguar San Diego for being a part of Aloha Sunday. Mahalo!
Photos courtesy of John O’Mara and RichardNesdale.com