The penultimate day of the US Open One Pocket Championships by CSI found some heavy timber crashing to the ground. John Schmidt found no grace from Jeremy Jones and was eliminated 3-0. Brandon Shuff found the same fate at the hands of Jose Parica. Charlie Williams was tossed aside 3-0 by Warren Kiamco. Jeremy Jones, after handling Schmidt so easily, was cast out 3-2 by Ike Runnels.
Darren Appleton was defatted and sent home by Shane Van boning 3-1 and in the very next round Van Boening was eliminated 3-2 by Scott Frost. Frost, who is try shooting some remarkable One Pocket, then defeated Larry Nevel 3-0 and did so in less than thirty minutes. Frost, who won this event in 2005, is the only previous winner of the event who is still in contention. Frost had been sent left by Franciso Bustamante 4-3 after Bustamante ran out the final rack in most impressive fashion. Twice in the rack Bustamante gutted it up and took very risky and courageous shots, once avoiding what would have been a game-ending collision by a hairs breadth. Frost could not complain about being beaten by that brave style.
Jose Parica was eliminated 3-2 by Justin Hall. Hall continued his winning ways against Joey Gray 3-2 and is very quietly moving to the ends of the bracket.
The early One-Loss matches today feature Carlo Biado against Justin Hall and Scott Frost versus Ike Runnels. Chris Bartram and Franciso Bustamante will take on the winners of those matches.
Over on the winner's side, where the sun is still shining brightly, there are only two smiling faces left. Corey Deuel will face Dennis Orcollo for the hot seat. Deuel and Orcollo have a common trait. Neither of them ever seems overly concerned about any of the myriad of situations that come up on a One Pocket table. Very calmly they survey the table and then, when they take action, it is always the correct one. This match is one worth watching and it will be on the TAR live stream Friday at 6 PM PST. The semi-finals and finals will also be streamed on Saturday beginning at 2 PM.
You may follow all the action at the AZB Live Scoring page as well as on the AZB brackets page
