Shane Van Boening
Shane Van Boening came out on top of a field of 53 players at the Pac-West Invitational, held June 23rd - 25th at Sam’s Hollywood Billiards in Portland, Oregon.
While the field was mostly local players, $10,000 in added money and Mosconi Cup points were more than enough to bring a number of big guns including Van Boening, Skyler Woodward, Corey Deuel, Dennis Hatch, Mika Immonen, Ramil Gallego, Antonio Lining and Oscar & Ernesto Dominguez.
Even with the field mostly local talent, the pool gods had a little fun in the first round as Woodward and Hatch matched up against each other. That match went to Woodward 9-4, giving Hatch a very long path through the one loss side to manage. Woodward would stay undefeated until the fourth round of play, where he lost a tight 9-7 match to Van Boening.
Van Boening then went on to defeat Lining 9-6 to get to the match for the hot-seat. His opponent for the hot-seat was Ernesto Dominguez. Dominguez already had a 9-5 win over Immonen under his belt, and was looking to upset Van Boening for the hot-seat. That upset didn’t happen though, as Van Boening ran away with a 9-4 win over Dominguez.
On the one loss side, the man to beat was Ramil Gallego. Gallego took a 9-4 loss to Woodward mid day Saturday, but fought back with a six match winning streak on the left side of the board that included notable wins over Hatch, Lining and a dominating 9-3 win against Oscar Dominguez. Gallego then eliminated Ernesto 9-2 to earn his shot against Van Boening in the finals.
The final match looked to be on its way to a second set early on, as Gallego led for the first part of the match. A 6-4 Gallego lead was quickly eliminated though at 6-6. Van Boening then took his first lead since 1-0, at 7-6. Gallego had a chance to tie things again at 7-7 but missed a 10-ball, allowing Van Boening to the hill. Gallego did come back to tie things at 8-8, but a dry break in the case game was his last trip to the table as he watched Van Boening run out for the the 9-8 win, and first place.
Van Boening pocketed $6,000 for first, and padded his sizable lead on the Mosconi Cup points list. Gallego settled for $4,000 in second place prize money.
