Meet the Players

Lila Bennett

Jake Brown

Matt Collins

Always at home with a stick and ball, Matt discovered polo during middle school. His polo has taken him to several Interscholastic National Championships and he was hon-ored with an invitation to be part of Team USPA – which took him to Florida and Wyo-ming. His favorite place to play polo, however, is with Maryland Polo – where he was wel-comed on the fields at Ladew at a young age. Matt has been fortunate to receive training as an umpire and hopes to be able to help in this regard after his graduation this year from Bowdoin College. When not playing polo, Matt can be found hiking, camping, or picking his banjo.

Mary Collins

Mary always enjoyed horses and riding, through pony club, foxhunting, and beginning at age 14, playing polo. Mary is currently a rising third year at the University of Virginia and is co – captain of the Cavalier’s women’s polo team. During high school, Mary played with the Maryland Polo Club girls team and has, over the years, played in five Interscholastic or Intercollegiate National Championship finals – winning two. Like her brother Matt, Mary has been grateful for the opportunity to be involved with summer polo on the grass – a huge thrill. When not on a horse, Mary enjoys tennis, training her micro/mini horse, “Olympus”, and painting murals.

Maddie Grant

The oldest of three sisters, Madelyn Grant began riding at an early age. Previously she was very active in the Baltimore County Horse Show Association, where she began competing at age four. She then moved on to USEF-rated state and regional events. Maddie’s interest in polo began after watching Marissa Wells play several summers ago at MPC. Maddie is a mem-ber of Maryland Girls Interscholastic program coached by Kelly Wells, and has been a mem-ber of the varsity team the past three years. In March, the Maryland IS team won the Inter-scholastic National Championship, for the second year in a row. Maddie will be a sophomore in the Upper School at Bryn Mawr this fall, where she plays goalie on the varsity lacrosse team.

Abbie Grant

Sophie Grant

William Green

Will is a rising junior at St. Paul’s. He plays indoor polo during the school year with West Shore Polo Team, coached by Cindy Halle, and plays outdoor polo in the summer.

Cindy Halle

Cindy Halle is well known as a polo player and coach. During her years at the University of California-Davis her team won four Women’s Intercollegiate titles, and she has played polo all over the country. Cindy came to Maryland to coach polo at Garrison Forest School in 1986, and she also gave lessons to many of the players of the newly-resurrected Maryland Polo Club. While coaching at Garrison Forest, Cindy’s teams won five Women’s National Interscholastic Championship titles, and Cindy met and married her husband, Ned. In 1997, she took time off from the game to raise her two children, and then returned to playing polo and to Garrison Forest in 2007. Under her leadership, GFS won two more National Championships in 2009 and 2011. Cindy was named Polo Magazine Coach of the Year in 1998 and is a certified polo umpire.

Pelham Hardie

Pelham has ridden since he was three years old and has been playing polo since he was 10. He currently plays Interscholastic Polo with West Shore Polo, and is coached by Cindy Halle. In addition to Polo, Pelham is also an avid foxhunter. He attends the Friends School of Baltimore.

Michael Hardie

Michael has been riding his whole life, but just started playing polo two years ago. After watching his kids Caroline and Pelham play for years, he decided to get in on the fun. He has been playing with Cindy Halle at Garrison Forest School.

Max Hempt

Max is from a polo family and a fourth generation player. There will be a fifth
generation, because both Ellen, 20, and George, 18, are playing polo. Happily, Max’s wife, Amy, is very supportive of family polo. George will be playing with Max for their West Shore Polo Team this season. From their farm in Camp Hill, Pa., the family also continues to campaign Standardbred race horses throughout the U.S. and Canada. Max is President and CEO of his family’s construction business, Hempt Brothers, Inc.
Max usually plays the #4 position.

George Hempt

George, the son of Max Hempt and his wife Amy, is a fifth generation polo
player. He started riding at an early age, and began to play polo competitively four years ago. During the past four winters he played in Interscholastic tournaments on the prom-ising West Shore Interscholastic team under the direction of Cindy Halle and Posey Obrecht. The team won the National Championship Tournament this year. George will be playing for his father’s West Shore Polo team this summer. He will be a freshman at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island this fall.

Tommy Huber

Tommy turned 17 in April and has been riding his entire life. Polo is one of his favorite activities and he is a regular on the fields during the summer at MPC. During the winter he plays on the West Shore Open Interscholastic team, which won the Interscholastic National Championship in Texas this past March. Tommy will be a senior at The Gilman School in Baltimore this Fall where he is a member of the varsity ice hockey team.

Louisa Huber

Ben Lynch

Ben has been playing polo now for 8 years. He has spent the last several years playing arena polo for the West Shore Open Varsity Team with his good friends and teammates George Hempt, Tommy Huber and Jackson Bennett. The team practices at Garrison For-est School, coached by Cindy Halle and Posey Obrecht. This year the West Shore Open Varsity team won the Regional Championships then went on to win the 2015 Interscho-lastic National Open Championships, held in Houston. He has spent the last several sum-mers playing outdoor polo with the Maryland Polo Club. Ben is a recent graduate form the Friends School of Baltimore. In the fall, Ben will be attending the University of Con-necticut, where he plans to continue to play polo.

Sarah Lynch

Posey Obrecht

Posey began playing polo at Garrison Forest School in 5th grade and played all the way through her senior year. Her team won the National Girls Interscholastic Championship in 2009. She attended the University of Kentucky where she played Intercollegiate polo all four years. She was a member of the University of Kentucky polo team that won the 2010 National Women’s Intercollegiate Championship. In 2013, she was named the National Women’s Intercollegiate Player of the Year .

Sara Orthwein

Sara Orthwein (née Gompf) is a second generation polo player. The daughter of Art, a twenty-six year player at MPC, and Betsy, a former player and manager for Art, Sara be-gan to ride when she was five. She successfully showed hunter/jumpers, and then learned to play polo at Garrison Forest School. She was team captain at GFS, and was an Interscholastic All-Star. She went on to Cornell University, where she repeated as team captain and Intercollegiate All-American for three years and met and later married team-mate PJ Orthwein. As the mother of their three young children, Sara is currently taking a break from her teaching career, but not from polo. Along with PJ, Sara was inducted into Cornell’s Polo Wall of Honor in 2014 – the first time a husband and wife were honored at the same time. Sara reports that she also loves the Baltimore Ravens, Pink (the singer), and the Tosh. O Show.

Anna Winslow Palacios

Anna currently resides outside of Albany, New York with her new husband, Liam, and their polo ponies. She recently began a new career as an independent sales representative for an equine supplement brand called Horse Logic Professional. Growing up on Melinda’s Prospect Farm in Owings Mills, she learned to play polo under the direction of Cindy Halle at GFS and spent her summers learning grass polo at MPC. She is a graduate of Cornell University, where she captained her varsity team to National Intercollegiate Championship wins in 2015 and 2016. In 2016, Anna was selected to Team USPA. With Team USPA, she participated in training programs in Aiken, SC and Sheridan, WY and was selected to represent the USA in the Manipur Statehood Day Tournament in Imphal, India in 2017 and 2019. Anna looks forward to returning to MPC for tournament play this summer.

Parker C. Pearce

Parker grew up in Monkton foxhunting with EHHC, eventing, and showing jumpers locally. He played interscholastic polo for the Maryland Boys, coached by Kelly Wells. Throughout high school, the Maryland Boys brought home two National Championship titles.  However, his polo roots go back to his great grandfather, A. Parker Hall, captain of the Princeton Polo Team in 1922, who led the Tigers to victory in the first Arena Polo Intercollegiate National Men’s Championship. Parker is a Cum Laude graduate of the Gilman School and will attend the University of Virginia, where he intends to study business and play for the men’s polo team. When not playing polo, his passion for outdoors will find him bird hunting, golfing, or painting landscapes.

Katherine Pinkard

Katherine is a lifelong equestrian, having grown up with horses in her backyard. After a successful amateur career winning many year-end championships in the show hunters, Katherine began playing polo in the summer of 2020 and was hooked on the sport after only a few lessons. She lives in Hunt Valley and runs Pinkard Properties, a Baltimore-based commercial real estate services firm.

Jack Shepley

Jack became interested in polo and took on learning to ride and play the sport at the same time. He and Amy began to buy horses and spent two summers learning the game in Virginia. They continue to play with Cindy Halle during the winter, and their skills have been sharpened with experience. Jack and Amy live in Mechanicsburg, PA, and their team is Long Lane Farm.

David Silvestre

David’s career in polo began in Mexico City where, as a teenager, he trained young horses for polo’s famous Gracida family. He went on to train for and play with several other top players in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. An excellent horseman and player, David is currently rated 2 goals and plays with PJ and Sara Orthwein while also manag-ing their horse operations.

Kelly Wells

Kelly grew up in a polo family in upstate New York and played on Cornell University’s polo team that won the National Women’s Intercollegiate Champion ship in 1991. She was honored as an All-American player in her junior and senior years. She has coached girls’ high school polo for eighteen years, first at Garrison Forest School and currently at Marlan Farm in Freeland, Md. She coaches the Maryland Boys and Maryland Girls Interscholastic teams. Over her career she has coached ten Women’s Interscholastic National Championship teams, including the 2014 and 2015 champions. Kelly teaches polo year round at her polo school and enjoys playing in the summer with her children, Marissa and Brennan.

Marissa Wells

Marissa, who grew up at Marlan Farm surrounded by polo and polo ponies, began play-ing at age eight. Playing on her first Interscholastic tournament team in the fifth grade, she has since represented Maryland Polo at the Women’s Interscholastic Nationals for the past 7 years. In 2011, as an 8th grader, Marissa captained the Maryland Girls team to the finals of the National Women’s Interscholastic Tournament, and she was named to the All-Star team. She has continued on that path, leading her teams to the finals of all 4 years of her high school career, notching National Championship wins in 2012, 2014 and 2015. Marissa was named “PTF (Polo Training Foundation) Female Interscholastic Player of the Year” for 2014 and was chosen in 2013 and 2014 as the only female All-Star at the USPA National Youth Tournament Series Championship finals. Marissa will graduate this year from Hereford High and attend Texas A&M in the fall where she will continue to play polo.

Wells Trevor

Trevor Wells, a native of Sykesville, learned to play polo at Maryland Polo Club while in high school, and went on to play at Cornell. He was a three-time All- American and was twice named PTF “Player of the Year”. Trevor has been a coach of the successful Balti-more Boys Interscholastic Polo team and enjoys foxhunting with the Mt. Carmel Hounds Hunt, where he is a whip. A veterinarian, Trevor has a mobile veterinary practice, spe-cializing in companion animals.

Brennan Wells