Jose Parica is widely known in the pool world as "The Leader of the Invasion" as he was the first Filipino player to bring their pool playing abilities to the US. Over the weekend of June 18th and 19th, it was Arizona that Parica was invading to show off his one pocket abilities at the Desert Classic Tour's Arizona State One Pocket Championship, held at Kolby's Corner Pocket in Tempe, Az.
One Pocket is a very popular game at Kolby's, due in part to the efforts of former Derby City One Pocket Champion Scott Frost and "Preacher" Ronn Rutan; so it was no surprise to see a field of 31 players at the event.
As the tournament chart would have it, Parica faced off against Frost in the second round of the event. The match went hill-hill with Frost coming back from a 2-0 deficit, only to lose the case game to Parica.
After the win over Frost, Parica would cruise on to the hot-seat match where he faced young gun Bobby Emmons. Emmons has never met a shot he doesn't like, and it showed in their match as Emmons "fired at will", making shots from everywhere on the way to a quick 3-1 win.
Meanwhile, Frost was in unfamiliar territory as he made his way through the one loss side of the brackets. Nevertheless, he still found his way to a rematch with Parica in the semi-finals. To Frost's dismay, he would not be winning this State Championship as Parica sent him to the rail with a 3-0 scoreline.
The final match between Parica and sharpshooting Emmons started out with Emmons still in gear and making balls from everywhere to take a quick 1-0 lead in the extended race to 5. After that first game, the pool gods turned their back on Emmons and those shots that he liked earlier in the day showed that they weren't as friendly with the title on the line. Emmons missed a couple of shots and that was all the pool veteran Parica needed to take control of the match. From that point, Parica put on a clinic in One Pocket tactics and Emmons found himself falling deeper and deeper behind. Five games later, it was Parica with the 5-1 win and yet another Championship to add to his impressive resume.
Parica pocketed $1045 for first, while Emmons settled for $605. Frost won $300 and Rutan won $175 for fourth.
