Las Vegas, Nevada- Day 4 of the Billiard Factory World Summit of Pool was filled with excitement with three top notch matches. A sold out crowd filled the newly configured arena with one featured Olhausen Championship Pro table. First up was Warren Kiamco making his ESPN debut against Francisco Bustamante, a veteran of ESPN events. Kiamco found himself fortunate with some rolls to take an early 3-1 lead, but as Bustamante proved this past March at the US Pro Tour Championship, no deficit could be too large for him to overcome. Bustamante wins 7-4.
The Alex Pagulayan/Francisco Bustamante semi-finals proved to be exciting and bewildering with Pagulayan taking a commanding 5-2 lead. Both players were in good spirits with laughter and joking echoing the entire match. But Bustamante again fought back to 5-4 before missing a 9-Ball to tie the match and then Pagulayan tried to make the winning 9-ball with his head turned facing away, that was an easy simple short straight in shot. He missed with a genuine look of shock on his face, but ended up making the shot when Bustamante missed the 9-Ball afterwards.
The final match was a re-match between The Lion and the South Dakota Kid, Shane Van Boening. Van Boening trailed early on to Pagulayan, despite making just minor errors. Alex stood at 5-2 lead once again with smiles and jokes, but a few errors and Shane's awesome break and fire power soon eroded the laughing and the score stood at 5-5. Shane's break failed him in rack 11 when he scratched in the side off the break and Pagulayan breathed heavily to run out out and broke and ran out to the 9-Ball in the next game. Making the final 9-Ball with a joyous yell, he soon stopped and screamed, "Oh no...yaaa!!" as the cue ball went two rails towards the side pocket for a scratch....but the cue ball avoided the side pocket by an inch and a relieved Pagulayan threw his hands up in celebration for sure this time as the new champion of the World Summit of Pool!
File photo courtesy of Diana Hoppe - Pool Pics by Hoppe
