With a 15-7 victory in the extended finals, Johnny Archer has defeated Alex Pagulayan and won the IBC Western Canadian Open 9-Ball Championships.
Archer lost to Ralf Souquet 11-5 late Friday night, but came back to score victories over Dan Louie and Martin Daigle to get to a rematch with Souquet. Archer won the rematch with Souquet 11-8 to get into the finals against Pagulayan.
Alex made himself the early favorite, in front of his home Canadian crowd, as he cruised through the early rounds crushing opponent after opponent. Not one opponent scored more than 5 games against Pagulayan early in the event.
The final match, in front of hundreds of fans at the Olympic Oval, alternated between players running racks and engaging in safety battles. Archer got off to a great start as he broke and ran four racks to stake a 5-1 lead. Racks seven through eleven were safety battled with Pagulayan winning 2 games and Archer winning three. After winning rack eleven, Pagulayan went on a run of his own and break and ran three racks to get back to 8-6 down.
Archer won rack 15 which featured another safety battle. Rack sixteen saw Archer make 3 balls on the break and push out to Pagulayan. Pagulayan took a shot at a tough 2-9 combo which he missed. Archer ran to a tough cross side bank on the 9-ball. Archer missed the bank, leaving Pagulayan a long straight shot on the 9-ball, which he missed. Archer then fired home a long tough cut on the 9-ball for the 10-6 lead. Archer broke and ran the next two racks, including making 5 balls on the break in rack 18. This pushed the lead to 12-6.
By now, the crowd has been treated to safeties, kicks, banks, jump-shots and table runs. They hadn't seen everthing however, as Pagulayan took an intentional foul on the one-ball in the next rack for his second foul and Archer locked him up again to score the game win with the 3-foul rule.
Archer again make 5 balls on the break in rack 20, but missed the one ball. This allowed Pagulayan to the table to pull back to 13-7 down, bit this would be Alex's last rack as Archer won the next two games for the 15-7 victory.
Archer collected 10,000 Canadian dollars (approximately $6,600), while Pagulayan settled for 5000 Canadian dollars (appoximately $3300).
Complete brackets are online as well as pictures from Diana Hoppe who is at the event. Look for more photos from this event to be added to the site on Sunday.
Photo courtesy of Diana Hoppe - Pool Pics by Hoppe
