Culver’s polo teams hope to show they’re ready to compete at the highest level

 

Culver Academies’ polo teams head into the Interscholastic Polo Regionals hoping to show they are ready to compete once again at the sport’s highest level.

“We’re trying to bring the program back to the days when Culver used to compete regularly in the nationals,” coach Craig Russell said. “We've slowly been catching up.”

That rebuilding has accelerated over the past two years. Culver, an elite leadership-oriented boarding school, has added more polo ponies, added matches and hired Russell, a former professional player, at the start of the 2024–25 school year.

The renewed focus marks a new chapter in the storied program. Since 1933, Culver’s Open team has won 12 national titles and the girls have won one. But Culver hasn’t challenged for a title in recent years.

The landscape of high school polo has changed as more top programs come from warm-weather clubs that train year-round and assemble “all-star” rosters of players who grew up playing polo.

Culver athletes typically come from jumping or Western riding backgrounds, where competition is individual rather than team-based. Only three students on the current roster had polo experience before arriving at Culver.

“You have to get them to understand how to play a team sport,” Russell said.

Players also must adjust to a different riding style while learning to swing a mallet and hit a ball at full speed.

“Some people are very proper in the way they ride,” he said. “In polo, they have to use the entire saddle and find that balance and get out of that comfort zone of just sitting properly on a horse.”

Culver relies on experienced polo ponies, most donated, some purchased, so players can focus on the game rather than on teaching a horse. A well-trained polo pony, Russell said, makes a big difference.

“It takes a couple of years to get one trained and understanding the game properly,” he said.

The open and girls teams have been steadily improving. The open team played national powers St. Croix of Michigan and Houston much closer this year. Both those programs have deep polo pedigrees, often made up of players whose parents are professionals and who train at dedicated facilities. The open team lost to Houston 14-11 in November.

“It just kind of slipped away from us,” Russell said. “That’s part of the learning experience.”

Sami Kettaneh ’26 believes this year’s team is the strongest Culver has fielded during his four seasons.

“We’ve had a year of really good coaching from Coach Russell. We traveled to California twice this year to play some really good teams, and we performed well,” he said.

Kettaneh grew up on a horse farm, has been playing polo for seven years and hopes to play in college. He is excited for regionals.

“I think we can win it,” he said.

He believes he, captain Will Kinsman ’27 and Matthew Nendza ’27 are a starting three that provide depth that few teams can match.

“A lot of interscholastic teams rely on one really good player to carry the game for them,” he said. “We've struggled in the past to put it together as a team, especially on defense. But if we can dial in our defense and keep doing what we've been good at on offense, we can certainly win.”

 

 

The girls team, led by captain Ainsley Pick ’27, has followed a similar upward arc. Pick, a lifelong rider, primarily on quarter horses, decided to try polo when she arrived at Culver.

“At first I hated it. I was so bad. I was the worst on the team,” she said. “But the team was so fun and I loved the horses. So I kept with it and then dropped every other horse sport to focus on polo.”

She now practices year-round and is Culver’s best female player.

“At first I wanted to ride the horse correctly, sit up straight. As I progressed I was just trying to stay on and hit the ball,” she said.

Pick, who also hopes to play in college, said she’s now working on keeping her composure under pressure.

“I just need to focus on what I'm doing and do what I know to do,” she said.

Russell calls Pick one of the program’s hardest-working riders.

“Her work ethic is out of this world. You basically have to beg her to go to class because she will practice, practice, practice,” he said.

Her leadership has helped a young team with little polo background improve rapidly. The other starters are Aubrey Gernand ’27 and Natasha Kanach ’28.

Kettaneh loves the physicality of the sport.

“As long as the horses are parallel to each other you can hit each other with as much force as you want. So, it's physical out there. It's rough. It's fast,” he said. “It's the most adrenaline feeling of any sport I've ever done.”

Pick agrees.

“When you get that really good bump and you bump the defender out of the way and then you take the ball, that's really satisfying,” Pick said.

Russell believes the teams’ success at regionals on March 6 will depend on staying mentally steady.

“We have to raise our intensity and not lose our heads when we’re down. Whenever something goes wrong, they kind of implode,” he said. “We’ve been working on staying focused on the goal.”

He said for the open team, regionals are the national championship.

“For us to get to nationals, we have to beat the two best teams in the country that are in our zone,” he said. “So to me, our nationals is literally our regionals.”

Pick said the girls just want to show they’ve improved.

“I just want my girls to put their best foot forward and play our best game,” she said.