US skipper Johnny Archer, partnered by Jeremy Jones, took Team America to the brink of Mosconi Cup glory as they completed victory over Thorsten Hohmann and Raj Hundal of Europe to move to the hill in the race to 11 competition.
Things started brightly for the Europeans as they won the opening doubles match to take themselves within one point of the Americans. It was all downhill from there though as the Americans proceeded to win the next four matches to make Sunday's play a formality
Mika Immonen's decision to change his doubles pairings around paid dividends as a rejuvenated Alex Lely, partnered by the rock solid Niels Feijen, went past the American duo of Shawn Putnam and Charlie Williams in the first match to pull the deficit back to just one point on day three of the 2005 Mosconi Cup.
In the second match of the day, Rodney Morris edged past Alex Lely in a topsy-turvy encounter which could have gone either way.
Lely held an early 3-1 lead, but Morris clawed back to tie the match at 4-4 and a scratch by Lely late in the match was the chance that Morris needed to score the 5-4 win.
The next match saw Morris and Strickland face Chamat and Immonen in a match that was controlled by the US team. They took an early 2-0 lead and cruised to a 5-2 win to stretch the US lead to 3 points.
In the fourth match, Strickand and Chamat were right back in action against each other. The pair traded run-outs in the first two racks but Team Europe's bad luck on breaks continued as Chamat scratched in the center pocket in rack three.
Two more run-outs followed before Strickland produced a golden break courtesy of three kicks to send the 9 all the way up the table. Strickland then ran out and completed the routine victory after Chamat lost control of the table again in what proved to be the final rack.
The day ended with another US match win as the team of Jeremy Jones and Johnny Archer defeated Thorsten Hohmann and Raj Hundal 5-3 to take the US team to a 10-5 lead going into Sunday's play.
