Seven teams competed this weekend during the World Professional Billiard League’s fifth week of match play at the WPBL Arena in Las Vegas, NV. At weeks end, the Minnesota Outlaws are the only WPBL team to have won every match this season.
Minnesota scored a season high 13 match points in their win against the Philadelphia Aces. Raising their points-per-match average to 10 and improving their match record to 5-0 after Sunday's match, the Outlaws are now atop the North Division just ahead of the Toronto Blue Sharks.
The doubles duo of Thorsten Hohmann and Ralf Souquet blew open the Sunday match with a 30-0 shutout of Brandon Shuff and Stevie Moore to take a 7-1 match lead. The lead swelled to 9-1 after Hohmann knocked off Shuff in singles 30-6. The win over Philadelphia came two days after Minnesota defeated the Las Vegas Dice 9-5, with Hohmann's 30-1 singles win over John Schmidt helping claim the victory.
Las Vegas bounced back Saturday to gain ground on the second place Los Angeles Wave in the South Division, with a 10-5 win over the Wave. The match was tied at 5-5 going into the final game, but the team of Charlie Williams, Mike Davis, and Schmidt defeated Los Angeles 30-1 in the finale.
The Dice and the rest of the South Division caught another break Sunday when Los Angeles was defeated by Miami 12-4 for their second straight loss. With the Wave down just 6-4 heading into the final singles game of the night, Corey Deuel outlasted Louis Ulrich in a shoot-out 28-20, giving Miami a 7-4 advantage with only one game left in the match.
Miami also moved out of last place in the South this weekend, getting help from their Saturday win over Pittsburgh 11-4. Lombardo and Deuel handed Shawn Putnam and Daryl Peach a shutout in doubles, giving Miami their first match win of the season. Heading into week six, the Cruise now have 6.8 points-per-match, a point and a half better than Atlanta.
The Chicago Rockets also made a move out of last in the North by defeating the Pittsburgh Poison Thursday night 12-6 for their second straight win over the Poison in four days. The match-clincher was Raj Hundal's 30-6 victory over Adam Smith in the final singles game of the night.
In individual standings, veteran Tommy Kennedy of the Phoenix Fire is now the top rated player in the league, percentage points ahead of Johnny Archer of the Atlanta Scorpions who is in second. Philadelphia Aces Captain, Darren Appleton who previously held the top spot, struggled Sunday and has slipped to third. The Wave’s Louis Ulrich was ranked 6th coming into the weekend matches, but fell to 30th after a disappointing weekend individually in his team's two losses.
The Phoenix Fire will open week six of the WPBL’s season Friday July 5th when they take on the Toronto Blue Sharks, as no matches will be played Thursday July 4th. Phoenix is literally on “fire” as all three members are ranked amongst the top seven individually, while the team sits in first overall. The match can be seen online free of charge at 6 pm PST at wpbltv.com.
All matches will be broadcast to a live studio audience at the WPBL Arena and at WPBLtv.com. For a complete listing of this weekend’s schedule, standings, merchandise and more visit the WPBL website. Please continue to follow the WPBL for additional updates:
Web: http://wpbltv.com
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WPBL Week Schedule
Friday, July 5th: Phoenix vs. Toronto 6pm PST
Saturday, July 6th: Miami vs. Atlanta 12pm PST
Toronto vs. Los Angeles 3:30pm PST
Houston vs. Phoenix 7pm PST
Sunday, July 7th: Los Angeles vs. Miami 12 pm PST
Atlanta vs. Houston 4 pm PST
