Shane Van Boening
The final day at the 39th Annual Simonis/Aramith US Open 9-Ball Championship began with the quarter-final rounds where Shane Van Boening claimed the hot seat with a firm 11-4 statement over Greek powerhouse Nikos Ekonomopoulos. On the one-loss side Dennis Orcollo hit that absurd high gear that he has and just maintained control of the table throughout the match. It wasn't that Dechaine didn't play well, he just didn't play much and fell 11-2.
This created the semi-final match between Dennis Orcollo and Nikos Ekonomopoulos. Orcollo played the same game he played against Dechaine and again just steered the course for most of the racks. He played quickly, as if he were eager to get back to Van Boening. Orcollo does not just snuggle up to losing and he wanted another shot at that last guy. He got it 11-3.
The crowd knew they were in for a great one and they got it. The final is a race to 13 games and certainly a valid test of skills. Van Boening was shooting for his third straight title and Orcollo was out to settle the score from two years ago when Van Boening beat him in the finals. The talk was that Van Boening had already beaten Orcollo just hours earlier but that Orcollo had just beaten two great champion players by a total score of 22-5. It's hard to say that sort of performance is only good enough for second place.
The final was a great match. Both men played up to their expectations and Orcollo jumped out to a 4-1 lead before Van Boening began his march. He slowly crept up from behind until the score was tied at 7. When Van Boening took his first lead at 8-7, it seemed to turbo charge his game to an even higher level Van Boening's sharp play combined with a couple bad breaks from Orcollo was all that was needed to put Van Boening in the history books as the first player ever to win three straight U.S. Open Championships.
Final score Van Boening 13 - 10 Orcollo
Final score Van Boening 13 - 10 Orcollo
