Jon Smith and Tres Kane
Jon Smith reaffirmed his dominance on the Diamond 7’ tables with an undefeated run through a field of thirty five other players at the Desert Classic Tour’s 2013 Season Finale at Skip & Jan’s in Tempe.
As is always the case on the Desert Classic Tour, Saturday play saw many marquee matches and top players finding themselves scraping to stay alive on the one loss side. Tour points leader Mitch Ellerman had notable wins over Max Maurer, Doc Rice and Brett Huth before dropping a match to Tres Kane. Ellerman watched Kane race to a hill-0 lead before winning seven straight games against Kane to completely change the dynamic of the match. Ellerman would not get past seven though, as Kane put the match away 8-7. Ellerman scored wins over Pete Lhotka and Mike Sandoval late Saturday to earn his ticket to Sunday play.
Last month’s winner, Mickey Provencio, was two and out with losses to Chuck Evans and Pete Lhotka. #6 ranked Bernie Pettipiece didn’t fare any better with early losses to Todd Dilley and Joe Watson.
Sunday play saw four undefeated players joined by two players on the left side of the board come back to determine a final winner. Tres Kane kept his winning streak alive with an 8-5 win over Chuck Evans, and Jon Smith sent #2 ranked Dennis Orender to the one loss side in an 8-6 match,
On the one loss side, Brian Reich and Mitch Ellerman were waiting for opponents. Reich had lost to Bobby Emmons in the first round on Saturday, but scored nine straight wins to keep his hopes of scoring his first DCT win alive. Brian would run over Chuck Evans 8-1 while Ellerman dropped an 8-8 decision to Dennis Orender.
Next up, Reich would eliminate Orender in fourth place with an 8-4 scoreline.
Back on the winners side, Jon Smith was scoring an 8-4 win of his own, over Tres Kane.
The semi-final match between Reich and Kane couldn’t have been much closer, with the score tied four times before Tres finally won the final two games for the 8-6 win and a rematch against Jon Smith in the finals.
The finals saw Smith take an early 2-0 lead and never look back. Kane did his best to stay with Smith, but just didn’t have the firepower to ever catch up as Smith extended his lead and took the first and only set of the finals 8-4 for first place.
