Intercollegiate Polo: Three from Poway reach national finals

Not many in Poway know it, but some of the finest young polo players in the country got their start in the sport at the Poway Valley Riders Association off Tierra Bonita Road.

That was where 2011 Poway High graduates Hollie Boggess, Nicole Johnson and Carina Deck learned to play the three-on-three, action-packed game.

And now the trio will be participating in the 2015 United States Polo Association National Intercollegiate Championships at the University of Connecticut’s Horsebarn Hill Arena on April 6 - 11.

Johnson and Deck play for Oregon State, which captured its first Western Regional title since 2009 last weekend by beating Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo in a thrilling 9-8 match at Central Coast Polo Club.

Boggess plays for Texas A&M, which will be making its first appearance in the national finals since 2012.

The bad news is Oregon State opens the single-elimination tournament against Texas A&M on Monday so one of the teams will be eliminated. The good news is that one of the teams will advance to the final.

“I am really good friends with Carina and I love Nicole,” Boggess said. “So, it is going to be hard to play against them, but it will be fun. I would have rather faced them in the finals than the first round, though.”

Boggess is the reason Deck got her start in polo and Deck is the reason Johnson got involved in the sport. Boggess invited Deck to play with the Poway Arena Polo Club while in high school and the two became good friends.

Deck had experience riding and jumping on horses, but never had played polo. She focused on competitive soccer at the time, but still went out on Tuesdays and Thursdays to play polo for three years during high school.

“I was playing competitive soccer and practice for the Poway Arena Polo Club was at the same time as soccer so I would only go sometimes,” Deck said. “I was not super committed to it until I got to Oregon State.”

And that is where she ran into Johnson. The two knew of each other at Poway, but were not close friends.

But while on a freshman tour at Oregon State the two ran into each other wearing the same Poway girls soccer sweatshirt.

“It was really weird,” Deck said. “The tour took us through the dorms and there happened to be a polo flier up and I participated with the polo team at Poway so I knew Oregon State had a team. I told Nicole that she should come and try it with me. We both ended up going to school there and got to know each other better and she picked up the game quickly.”

In order for that to happen, Johnson had to part ways with her first choice of sport, softball. She was planning on trying to walk on at Oregon State, but it didn’t work out. That is what led her to giving polo a shot.

“Carina pulled me out to a polo practice freshman year and it just stuck with me,” Johnson said. “I thought I would be going to college to find a softball team to play for because that is what I did in high school. I had no idea about polo when I graduated high school so I never expected it.”

Johnson played on the junior varsity team for the first few years at Oregon State. When she would come back to Poway she would play with the club in Poway, getting pointers from Russ and Billy Sheldon, who instruct the team.

“I had a lot of help from everyone at the Poway club,” Johnson said.

She then joined Deck on the varsity team as a junior last season. The two nearly reached the national final then, but Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo beat Oregon State in a shootout.

Avenging that loss has made this year even sweeter for Johnson and Deck. Add in a reuniting party in Connecticut with Boggess and it cannot get much better for the three seniors.

“It’s awesome,” Boggess said. “I think Poway is a great place and there are a lot of good players from there. It always seems like there are one or two playing in the finals. To have three of us there this year is awesome.”