Shane Van Boening (Photo courtesy of J.P. Parmentier)
Sunday play at the CSI US Open One Pocket Championship saw the last changing of the guard as the permutations of who would make it to the 10 pm final unfolded.
10 AM MATCHES
The first matches of the day took place at 10 am, as we saw the last four players on the losers side fighting it out. On the top of the draw we saw Alex Pagulayan matched up against Santos Sambajon with Alex coming out the winner to move into the next round to meet Francisco Bustamante.
At the bottom of the draw we had Charlie Bryant matched up against Ike Runnels with Ike moving to the next round to meet Sylver Ochoa.
1 PM MATCHES
In the hot seat match we had the much improved Darren “Dynamite” Appleton dueling it out with this years Derby City Classic One Pocket Champion Shane Van Boening. Unfortunately Shane just made one too many scratches in this match and allowed Darren to come out the winner with a 4-3 score line. This match went with the break, and always had Darren ahead in the match. The last game was exciting for the fans that witnessed some great shot making by both players. Shane would then have to wait for the 7 pm match to see if he could get another stab at Mr. Appleton.
Next we had Alex Pagulayan playing Francisco Bustamante to get to the last two players standing on the losers side of the bracket. Francisco - not surprisingly - carried on his winning ways and came through in this match.
The other pairing was Ike Runnels up against Sylver Ochoa, in a match that Sylver had control of throughout, and came out the winner at 3-1.
4 PM MATCHES
The final pairing on the losers side of the bracket saw Francisco Bustamante scrapping it out with Sylver Ochoa. Sylver put a stop to Francisco's winning ways and came out the winner with a score of 3-2.
7 PM MATCH
Next Mr. Ochoa had to meet the waiting Shane Van Boening, who once again was poised to find his way back to the winning circle. It was no surprise that Shane put a stop to Sylver's great play in this event, with Shane winning with a 3-1 score line.
10 PM MATCH
They say that the cream always rises to the top. Well, here we had a final with two great young guns of the One Pocket game rising to the occasion. Darren was on top of his game immediately taking the score line to 3-2 in his favor. In the sixth game, by his own admission, Appleton missed an easy run out to allow Shane to level the match at 3-3.
Darren then had another relatively easy run out to win the next game, but missed an easy ball to once again allow Shane to win the game and take the lead at 4-3. In game eight Darren played a great combo but once again dogged the bank, and that was all she wrote as Shane was left an easy run out to take down the title with a 5-3 score line.
Once again Shane Van Boening has not only proved himself worthy of yet another highly prized One Pocket title, but has shown the pool world just what a talent he has in so many disciplines of the game. He really is a true champion that should be at the top of his games for many years to come. Well done Shane!!!
It must also be noted that CSI once again put on another very slick event, that went without a hitch, and not without the hard work put in by the great team of tournament directors Bill Stock, Ken Shuman and John Lehman.
One must also not forget the “The Action Report” team that put out their live stream broadcasts covering all of the matches throughout the weeks play.
It was also great to see ONE POCKET once again being presented in such a high profile way by CSI, giving the discipline its rightful place in the pool calendar.
