Shane Van Boening and Vivian Villarreal
If someone asked you to come up with 20 male competitors that you'd like to see at a pool tournament, you'd be hard-pressed to come up with a list better than the one that comprised the field of players at the Men's Open 10-Ball event of the 2nd Annual Tornado Open (a similar list of female players is, literally, a separate story). Fifteen of the top 25 players on the BCA's Player Ranking list were on hand, as were a host of other notables, like Tommy Kennedy, Skyler Woodward, Justin Bergman, Dennis Hatch, Robb Saez, Brandon Shuff, Mike Davis and Vilmos Foldes, to name just a few.
The $85,000-added Tornado Open, hosted by the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, in Hollywood, FL from Sept. 28 to Oct. 2, featured nine separate tournaments, three with $25,000-added and a total $100,000 purse. The marquee tournaments were the Men's and Women's 10-Ball Open, and the Scotch Doubles Tournament, featuring a host of dream pairs like the tournament's namesake, Vivian Villarreal and Dennis Orcollo, Shane Van Boening and Brittany Bryant, Mika Immonen and Helena Thornfeldt, Ewa Mataya Laurance and Ernesto Dominguez, Kelly Fisher and Darren Appleton, Karen Corr and Corey Deuel, and Allison Fisher and John Morra. (another literal separate story).
In the end, the 78-entrant Men's Open 10-Ball event came down to three matches between Shane Van Boening and (something of a surprise, although not a big one) Josh Roberts, whose last (reported) major win came against Pagulayan in the finals of The Cheesehead Classic in Wisconsin last October. Roberts took the first of those three in the hot seat match, but Van Boening came back from the semifinals against Warren Kiamco and defeated Roberts twice in the double elimination final to claim the title.
As the field narrowed to 12, only five of the BCA's 25 top players remained - (in ranking order) Shane Van Boening (1), Dennis Orcollo (4), Warren Kiamco (6), Mike Dechaine (10) and Alex Pagulayan (17). Three of them (Van Boening, Orcollo and Pagulayan) were still on the winners' side of the 78-entrant bracket.
After defeating Tommy Kennedy, Richard Pugliese, Justin Bergman, and Warren Kiamco, Van Boening squared off in a winners' side semifinal versus The Lion. Josh Roberts, who'd defeated Stony Stone, Drake Niepoetter, Manny Chau and Shaun Wilkie, faced Orcollo in the other one.
Shane dominated 8-1 in his match against Pagulayan, as Roberts downed Orcollo 8-6. Roberts got into the hot seat with an 8-4 win over Van Boening, and waited on his return.
Over on the loss side, where Dechaine, Bergman, Kiamco, Davis and Manny Chau continued to lurk, Pagulayan drew Bergman, who'd eliminated Kevin Cheng 8-4 and Antonio Lining 8-3 to reach him. Orcollo picked up Kiamco, who'd been sent to the loss side by Van Boening in a winners' side quarterfinal and was in the midst of a four-match, loss-side streak that would take him as far as a re-match versus Van Boening in the semifinals. Kiamco had eliminated Dechaine 8-5 and Manny Chau 8-3 to get Orcollo.
Old adversaries, Pagulayan and Kiamco, advanced to the quarterfinals; Pagulayan eliminating Bergman 8-3 and Kiamco defeating Orcollo, double hill (Kiamco's first of three straight double hill matches). Kiamco went on to defeat Pagulayan, double hill, and then locked up with Van Boening for a third double hill battle that eventually gave Van Boening a second, and necessary third shot against Roberts.
Van Boening and Roberts played 18 games over the two-set final. Van Boening won 16 of them. He gave up nothing in the opening set and though Roberts would chalk up two racks in the second set, Van Boening would close it out to claim the Men's Open 10-Ball title.
