The South Team has moved into a commanding lead at the 2003 Patriot Cup at Planet 9-Ball in Tampa FL, but the North team is not out of contention.
The South started with a 7-4 lead going into Sunday's matches, and they raised their lead to 8-4 when the team of Buddy Hall & Charlie Williams defeated Rodney Morris & Corey Deuel 4-1 in scotch doubles 9-ball.
The North team cut the lead to 8-7 by winning the next three matches. Mika Immonen defeated Charlie Williams 5-2 in singles 9-ball, Allen Hopkins defeated Tommy Kennedy 5-4 in singles 9-ball and then the North team defeated the South team 4-3 in 5-5 on five 9-ball.
The North Team had to feel good going into the straight pool match with a chance to even the score if Tony Robles, one of the top 14.1 players in the country, could defeat Johnny Archer from the South. What the North Team didn't count on, was that Archer would post a run of 98 balls on his way to a 125-59 win over Robles. This moved the score to 9-7 for the South.
The South Team then pushed their lead back to 3 matches when Tommy Kennedy defeated Corey Deuel 3-1 in the 8-ball match.
The match score is now at 10-7 and the game score is at 51-44, with three more matches to go. The winning team has to outscore the other team in both matches and games in order to hoist the Patriot Cup. In the event of a tie where one team leads in matches and the other in games, the competition will come down to singles match between the MVP's of each team. At this time, those players would be Mika Immonnen for the North and Johnny Archer for the South.
Photo courtesy of Diana Hoppe - Pool Pics by Hoppe
