Friday was moving day at the Johnny Archer Classic, held at Marietta Billiards in Marietta, GA. The 11:30 am round to thin down the last 16 on the winners side of the draw, certainly dealt it's share of surprises.
The first shocker was Shannon Daulton pushing the host Johnny Archer over to the one loss side 9-7. Shannon, who says that he does not really play any pool these days, must have drawn on his talent and his memory skills, as we witnessed some really great shot making and safety play to put him in charge of the match.
Johnathan Pinegar steam rolled over Brandon Shuff with a lop sided score of 9-1, and Shawn Putnam surprisingly took control of his match against Rodney Morris, beating Rodney 9-3. Next, we had Hunter Lombardo putting an end to Wan Can’s (China) run on the winners side at 9-7.
The last surprise of these matches was Mike Davis catching a stroke as he allowed Stevie Moore to put only 2 beads on the wire at 9-2.
In the remaining 11:30 am matches we saw Shane Van Boening squeak past Corey Deuel 9-8. Tommy Kennedy showed some of his old form as he got the better of Israel Rota (Phi) 9-4. Not surprisingly Warren Kiamco (Phi) put paid to Mark Ritter’s winners side status at 9-6.
This now left eight players fighting it out in the 8:00 pm matches to find the last four winners side players left standing on Saturday.
We saw a huge upset in the first match between Shane Van Boening and Shannon Daulton, as Shannon immediately established control of the match from the get go. With the score line at 5-1 Shane began a brief come back and got the score to 7-6 in Shannon’s favor, but unfortunately for Shane, Shannon caught a second wind and put the pedal down and took the last two racks to get the win at 9-6. Shane was visibly shocked at the result and just stayed at the table trying to compose himself for what seemed an eternity, preparing himself for his next match at 10:00 pm.
In a long and drawn out affair, we saw Johnathan Pinegar beat Tommy Kennedy, and Warren Kiamco (Phi) was always ahead of Shawn Putnam until Shawn tied it at 6-6. With the help of some stellar safety play, Warren took it down with a 9-6 score. Ironically this would match Shawn up against the other Filipino in the field in the 10:00 pm losers side matches.
Finally, we had the match up between Hunter Lombardo and Mike Davis, which went to Mike Davis
The pairings for the Sunday morning 11 am winners side matches are as follows:
Shannon Daulton Vs Jonathan Pinegar
Warren Kiamco Vs Mike Davis
LOSERS SIDE
In the 10 pm losers side matches we had Israel Rota (Phi) against Shawn Putnam in a match that had Israel in front until Shawn leveled it at 7-7. Shawn then got to the hill at 8-7, but left himself no shot after what would be his last break. Israel leveled the score at 8-8 and the proceeded to break and run out a very difficult rack for the win. Shawn had just lost two matches in a row to two very talented players from the Philippines.
Next up we saw Corey Deuel lose 9-3 to the much improved Hunter Lombardo, who like fine wine seems to improve with age. Next up we had Shane Van Boening looking for revenge for his loss to Shannon Daulton just minutes earlier, up against the 18 year old Wan Can from China. Shane took no prisoners in this lop sided match, and proceeded to run rack after rack to destroy his opponent 9-1.
Lastly we had Tommy Kennedy having a flashback to his winning ways of yesteryear up against young Josh Roberts. Tommy tore him up at 9-5 to put himself into the last four standing on the left side of the bracket.
The pairings for the Sunday morning 11 am losers side matches are as follows:
Israel Rota Vs Hunter Lombardo
Shane Van Boening Vs Tommy Kennedy
