 Scott Frost |
The Olhausen Billiards Desert All Around Tour drew a field of 42 players to play big table 10-ball at Sixshooters Billiards in Phoenix, Az. The field included the usual assortment of top Arizona talent including Scott Frost, Mitch Ellerman, Dennis Orender, Terry Osborne, Chuck Evans, Tony Confalone, Gus Briseno and Mike Pankoff. Adding to the already talented field at this event was “The Texas Tornado” Vivian Villarreal.
The draw was not kind to Villarreal as she met up with Gus Briseno in the first round and was sent to the one loss side in a lopsided 9-2 match. Briseno had a tough draw himself, but he displayed some of the best pool we have seen from him in a while as he dispatched Villarreal, former All Around Champion Tony Confalone, Ray Robles and tour points list co-leader Mitch Ellerman on day one. Other players who remained undefeated on day one were Scott Frost, Chuck Evans and Bernie Pettipiece.
Day two got started with twelve players left in the tournament. Villarreal had bounced back from her loss to Briseno to win four matches on the left side of the board and earn a spot in Sunday's matches. Her stay in tournament on Sunday was cut short by Muaz Ashard. Ashard then lost to California's Reed Stensrude. The other half of the one loss side saw Mitch Ellerman eliminate Bobby Emmons and Bobby Ast.
On the winners side, Scott Frost made quick work of Briseno and Chuck Evans made even quicker work of Pettipiece. Pettipiece then fell to Ellerman and Briseno eliminated Stensrude.
Next up on the one loss side was a rematch of the Ellerman/Briseno match. Their winners side meeting had been a hill-hill win for Briseno and the rematch was no different as Briseno ran a touchy table at hill-hill for another win.
The hot-seat went to Frost in a one-sided 9-3 match and Evans went to the one loss side to take on Briseno. Evans displayed some great pool in this match and eliminated Briseno 7-5 to earn a rematch with Frost in the finals.
The extended race to thirteen final match started out close before Frost started to distance himself from Evans. Evans put up a valiant fight, but in the end it was uncharacteristic misses from Evans that allowed Frost to run away with the 13-7 win.
With all of the side pots, Frost earned $1650 for first place while Evans pocketed $700. As is always the case on tour, all of the players who went “three and out” were eligible for prizes donated by the great sponsors of the tour. The big prize of the brand new McDermott Cue went to tour regular Gary Koschnick.
With his fourth place finish, Mitch Ellerman moved into first place on the points list. Jimmy Mendoza remains in second place after missing this event due to a scheduling conflict. Frost's first place finish moved him into third place on the points list, a mere 25 points ahead of Mike Pankoff.
The Olhausen Billiards Desert All Around Tour is sponsored by Olhausen Billiards ("The Best in Billiards"), as well as McDermott Handcrafted Cues, Visual Impressions, Aramith Billiard Balls, Tiger Products, Whisler Custom Cues, OnQ Cases, Tweeten Fibre, Joe Tucker, Billiards Press, Billiards Digest and Simonis Billiard Cloth.
