Mike Davis
In races to 2, there is not a lot of room for error. Races to 2 in One Pocket, while certainly contributing to shorter matches and overall shorter tournaments does put just a bit of pressure onto the very first game in a match. Lose, and your opponent is already on the hill. At this past weekend’s (Sat., Aug. 3) One Pocket event, which was held under the auspices of The Pool Series and drew 32 entrants to The Smokin’ Cue in Charlotte, NC, Mike Davis, Jr. went undefeated to claim the event title. He gave up just a single rack to his first opponent and did not allow any of his next five opponents to record any at all.
To be even-handed about it, giving up either none at all or a single rack in a race to 2 is the only way that a competitor can record a match win. Runner-up Rob Leeper, for example, in his winning matches, of which there were six, gave up one rack and none at all, three times, each. He gave up a total of five racks to Mike Davis; two in the hot seat match and three in the final.
Further dimming the spotlight on the ‘Wow!’ of shutouts is the fact that in this One Pocket event, through 60 matches (two forfeits), there were 38 shutouts; more the norm than the exception. Davis was the only competitor to chalk up five of them. All of Jeff Abernathy’s four wins were shutouts, but he lost his two by shutout.
Davis’ path went through Hank Powell (1), before closing down Liz Taylor and Eddie Little to draw Leeper in one of the winners’ side semifinals. Working from the other end of the bracket, Dean Welch opened with a shutout against William Wood and then, defeated Brian Kurzel and Bruce Campbell, both 2-1, to draw Abernathy in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Two shutouts – Davis over Leeper and Welch over Abernathy – put Davis and Welch into the hot seat match, where Davis chalked up his fourth straight shutout and claimed the hot seat.
On the loss side, Leeper picked up Paul Bailey, who was working on a four-match, loss-side winning streak (three shutouts) and had recently eliminated Bruce Campbell (1) and Hunter White (0). Abernathy drew Hank Powell, who’d followed his opening-round to loss to Davis with five wins (three shutouts) and recently, the elimination of Brian Hinson (0) and Eddie Little (1).
Abernathy shut Powell out and was joined in the quarterfinals by Leeper, who’d eliminated Bailey (1). Leeper shut Abernathy out in those quarterfinals and gave up just a single rack to Welch in the semifinals. Davis completed his undefeated run with (you guessed it) a second shutout over Leeper.
The next stop on The Pool Series, scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 24, will be a $500-added, 8-Ball tournament, hosted by Irish Cue in Cornelius, NC.
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