Westmont Polo Wins the West

The Westmont men’s polo team defeated Stanford University 18-10 on March 22 at the Central Coast Polo Club in San Luis Obispo to capture the USPA Intercollegiate Western Regionals. The victory earns the Warriors a spot at the U.S. Polo Association National Intercollegiate Championship Tournament, however due to a lack of funding and experience, the team will not be competing at the University of Connecticut to defend its back-to-back national titles April 6-12. “They deserve to go and they worked very hard to beat Stanford,” says Coach John Westley. “It’s not all about winning and I would have loved to given the boys an opportunity to travel and get the experience.”

Junior captain Tony Uretz of La Quinta led this year’s team. Sophomore newcomers Mike Esparza of Torrence and Carey Osimo of Monrovia joined him. “Mike and Carey had never ridden before and they have a long way to go, but they have the concept of the game down and I have been impressed,” says Westley, who works out with the players five to six days a week from November through April.

Westley says not only will Esparza and Osimo be stronger next year, but Tony’s younger brother, Hank, has been accepted and will enroll at Westmont next fall. “I got to spend the weekend with him when he went to nationals with his El Dorado High School team,” Westley says.

Westmont, which has won the Western Regionals nine of the last 12 years, became the first Western Region team to win National Intercollegiate Championship in more than a quarter century in 2012. It repeated as national champions last year, beating the University of Virginia 16-13.

The Westmont polo club team was created in 2000, fielded its first team in 2005 and competed for a national championship in 2007, falling to Texas A&M. Unlike students at larger universities, the Westmont team members do not receive college scholarships to play polo.