Alex Pagulayan and Dennis Orcollo (Poolactiontv.com)
It’s been a long dry spell and the players were itching to get back into competition. Heather Williams – owner of Racks On The Rocks in West Peoria, IL – put out the call and the players responded.
The Aramith/Simonis Pro Classic consisted of two events – a Ten Ball & One Pocket division.
The double elimination Ten Ball event began on Wednesday with eighteen players. The entry fee was $300 and the format was winner break and rack your own with nine ball rules – race to 11. It was double elimination until the finals which was to be one extended race to 15.
Most players got a bye in the first round but Dennis Orcollo & Corey Deuel had to duke it out with Dennis sending Corey to the one loss side. Jeremy Seaman and Tony Chohan also had to play – Tony sent Jeremy packing.
After a few rounds, there were four left on the winner’s side – Dennis Orcollo vs Alex Pagulayan and Tony Chohan vs Evan Lunda. Dennis & Tony moved on to the hot seat match as their opponents headed west.
On the one loss side, Josh Roberts defeated Evan Lunda and Alex beat Robb Saez to round out the final four.
Dennis emerged undefeated after the hot seat match to claim his seat in the finals. Tony headed over and awaited the results of the Josh Roberts and Alex match. Alex prevailed leaving Josh in fourth place.
The match began to see who would go to the finals. Everyone anticipated a close match since both Tony & Alex were playing so well but it was not to be – Alex fell into dead stroke & won 11-4. Tony finished in third place.
It looked like it was going to be a blowout in the extended race to fifteen with Dennis taking a 5-0 and a 6-2 lead. Then, everything changed and the Lion roared ahead to 8-6! Dennis tied it at 8 apiece and then moved ahead to 10-8. Alex tied it up 10-10 and then it went back and forth until they were tied at 13 each. Alex got to the hill first & then won the case game to claim the title! Congratulations to both players for a great event!
The $100 entry Nine Ball Mini run by Josh Suits drew sixteen players. When the smoke cleared, Josh Roberts & Evan Lunda were left standing. They duked it out and Josh took the champ’s share of the cash.
Fourteen players ponied up the $500 entry fee for the One Pocket event. The format was lag for the break and a race to four – one extended race to six in the final match.
Soon it was down to four on the winner’s side – Alex vs Roberto and Dennis vs Tony. Alex and Dennis moved to the hot seat match while Roberto and Tony headed over to the one loss side.
Roberto & Corey battled with Roberto moving forward as well as Chip Compton who defeated Tony.
As in the Ten Ball event, Dennis claimed his seat in the finals and Alex headed over to wait for the result of the Compton-Gomez match.
Chip prevailed leaving Roberto in fourth place. In the match to see who would face Dennis in the finals, Chip went out to a 2-0 lead but from there, it was all Alex. He caught a gear and won four in a row to advance to the final match. Chip finished in third place.
Again, same finalists – different game. Alex won the lag and never looked back as he defeated Dennis six in a row to claim another title!
Congratulations to both Dennis & Alex for two fantastic events!!!
We’d like to thank Heather Williams and her staff who took great care of all the players. The added money for the events was provided by title sponsors Aramith and Simonis as well as Diamond Billiard Products, Eric Nelson with StraightPoolEye, Racks On The Rocks and PoolActionTV.com.
Special consideration goes to Beams Lawn Service, C & E Painting, Magnusson Windows & Siding, River City ACS, Untouchable Trends Tattoos & Tanning, Zingular Health Products, Peoria County APA and Heartland Marketing. We’d also like to thank table mechanic Jack Zimmerman for a great job!
We’d like to thank Jeremy Jones, Larry Schwartz and Mary Kenniston for their expert commentary.
We would also like to thank all our regular sponsors and fans for another fantastic event! Our sponsors include Lomax Custom Cues, John Barton of JB Cases, Durbin Custom Cues, Aramith, Hanshew Custom Cues, Simonis and Fort Worth Billiards.
Our next event is the 47th Annual Texas Open Nine Ball Championships – live from Skinny Bob’s in Round Rock, TX! Dates are October 28th-November 1st! Hope to see you there!
