Sixty-two players came to Strokers Billiards in Palm Harbor to battle out the fifth Central Florida Fury event on April 03, 2005. One player to remain unnamed, Adam Wheeler, showed up an hour late because of daylight savings time, but that didn't stop him from running out until he ran out of opponents.
Wheeler started the day with scores of 7-1, 7-2, and a 7-3 win over Jason Richko who defeated Wheeler in the finals at the last event. Wheeler added a 7-0 match win and then met Danny Sheldon who was making incredible shots and capitalizing on any opportunity. Sheldon gave Wheeler a tough time, knotting things up at 6-6, but Wheeler was able to take the last rack, win 7-6 and step into the hot seat match.
Also making his way through the field was Dave Ross who was putting players on the left side with wins of 7-3, 7-4, 7-6, 7-2 and 7-2 to make his way to the hot seat, meeting Wheeler. Ross ran out the first game off of Wheeler's break and Wheeler ran the second game off of Ross' break to make the score 1-1. Wheeler then captured the next two outs, broke and ran, and then gained ball in hand for another out to create a quick 5-1 lead. This didn't seem to deter Ross at all and he went on to conquer three runs and a 5-9 combo to tie the score 5-all. Wheeler broke and ran the next rack to go up 6-5 and no ball on the break meant curtains for Ross as Wheeler ran out for the 7-5 win and a spot in the finals.
Ross went to the B side to join Danny Sheldon in the semi-finals but was forced to settle for third place as Sheldon took the match 5-3, setting up the rematch between Sheldon and Wheeler in the finals. Wheeler had his closest match of the day come from Sheldon two rounds before, so the finals could have been a back and forth match. This was not the case. After the first rack, which was a 6 ball cluster, Wheeler managed to run out 5 games in ten minutes for a quick 6-0 head start in the race to 9 finals. It looked like Sheldon was going to get some momentum going when the 2-9 was laying favorable for him, but the 9 rattled and he conceded the shot to Wheeler, putting him at 7-0. Wheeler finally missed in the next rack, but Sheldon was done and didn't make the out. In what may have been the final rack, Wheeler hooked himself on the two. He took a look and kicked it in smoothly off the long rail with shape on the three for the out and a 9-0 closeout victory.
Results:
1st Adam Wheeler $560
2nd Danny Sheldon $320
3rd Dave Ross $200
4th Bruce Choyce $140
5th/6th Rodel Morados, Brian Davalos $100
7th/8th Ray Pollanz, Julio Aquino $80
9th-12th Robert Otto, Robert Noon, Brett Lykens, Dan Whitten $60
13th-16th Jeff Miller, Rick Rogers, Steve Fiat, Neil LaLone $40
