Team USA has won the 2003 Mosconi Cup.
The day started with Team USA trailing 8-6 and smarting from a 5-0 beating on Saturday. Things got moving in a positive direction right off the bat though, on Sunday. Rodney Morris scoring a 5-3 win over Thorsten Hohmann. Morris was full of energy and enthusiasm and he was too much for Hohmann to handle. Hohmann led 2-1, but Morris came back with a table run in rack four and another in rack five. From there, Morris navigated some tough tables and took advantage of Hohmann errors for the win.
Next up was Steve Davis vs Johnny Archer. Davis showed noticable nerves in this match and was pacing the floor in between racks. Davis took a 2-1 lead, but was forced to watch Archer win the next four games for the 5-2 win.
Earl Strickland then came to the table to play Nick Van Den Berg with the chance to pull Team USA back into the lead. Strickland was in prime form, as he ran out three racks and quickly took a 4-2 lead. Van Den Berg came back to tie the score at 4-4, but Strickland broke and ran the final rack for the 5-4 win.
Team Europe then sent Mika Immonen, their most consistent player of the week, into battle against Tony Robles for Team USA. Immonen broke and ran the first rack, but missed a couple balls to allow Robles to get confortable and score the 5-2 win.
This brought Team USA to the hill at 10-8, with Charlie Williams facing Ralf Souquet. Williams had struggled the first three days of the event, but played better in this match. Towards the end of the match, both players made mistakes, but it was Williams who made more and Souquet scored a 5-3 win.
The final match of the event saw reigning US Open Champion Jeremy Jones facing Marcus Chamat from Team Europe. Jones ran out the first two racks for a 2-0 lead, before Chamat won rack three. Jones ran the next racks for a 4-1 lead but a bad safety in rack six led to another Chamat rack. A mistake by Jones in rack seven led to another Chamat win, but a poor safety by Chamat in rack eight was the last shot he had, as Jones ran out the rack for the Team USA victory.
Check out all the details at the official Mosconi Cup site at www.mosconicup.com
