The Virginia Polo teams hosted the 2025 Fall Invitational this past week, culminating in final games Saturday for the men’s teams and Sunday for the women’s teams.

The tournament is one of the first opportunities for many of the intercollegiate teams to play each other and learn more about the competition. This year many teams had new talent and the tournament was an excellent opportunity to see the new teams vie for the final trophy.

Coach Lou Lopez with UVA women’s team Nora Gaudion, Kelsey Bray, Rory Knox, and Mackenzie Craig

The women’s side of the tournament featured five teams, UVA, USC-Aiken, Texas A&M, UK, and Cornell while the men’s division included teams from UVA, Texas A&M, UK, and Cornell. Our UVA teams featured some promising new players with the addition of Rory Knox to the women’s team joining second year Kelsey Bray, fourth year Mackenzie Craig, and fourth year Nora Gaudion. The UVA men were led by Mak Mourad Shah and included Iago Masias, James Grayken, Brian Salmon, and first year players Wil Ballhaus and Samuel Jaramillo.

Coach Lou Lopez with UVA men’s team players James Grayken, Wil Ballhaus, Iago Masias, Samuel Jaramillo, Brian Salmon, and Mak Mourad Shah

In the first day of the tournament the UVA women started strong with a 19 to 5 victory over the UK team. In their next matchup they played Cornell and secured their spot in the final with a winning score of 8 to 6. In the final game the UVA women played the USC-Aiken team of Winnie Branscum, Briana Jordan, and Madison Jordan in a challenging and closely matched game. The UVA ladies led at the end of the first chukker with a score of 4 to 3 with Kelsey Bray contributing 3 goals, and ended the first half leading 6 to 5. The USC-Aiken girls racked up the points in the third chukker with each of the players sinking a goal. The teams were evenly matched in the tense fourth chukker with Kelsey scoring two more points for UVA but she was matched by a point each from Winnie and Briana. The USC-Aiken women cinched the victory with a final score of 11 to UVA’s 9.

In the men’s division the UVA men secured the first win against UK in a match ending 8 to 7, securing them a spot in the finals on Saturday. Men’s game 2 featuring Cornell vs Texas A&M culminated with a victory for the Cornell team of Malachi Light, Max Sponer, Benito Jaramillo, and Dylan Tung over Texas A&M’s players Mitch Coventry, Tomas Tejera, Andres Solis, and Matthew Schlomer.

In the men’s final a 2-point shot by Malachi Light in the second chukker put Cornell in the lead by half time with a score of 6 to 3. The UVA team returned from halftime with force, adding six points to the board, including a 2-point goal from Captain Mak, and bringing UVA into a one point lead over Cornell, 9 to 8. The tournament win was sealed in the fourth chukker with a 2-point shot from Benito Jaramillo that went unanswered by UVA ending the game with Cornell up 10 to UVA’s 9.

Thank you to all the teams who traveled to the Virginia Polo Center to compete and make it a great tournament!