Last Round Ends Some Hopes, Advances Others

Last Round Ends Some Hopes, Advances OtherRound 5 AnnouncedCrowd favorite Alex “The Lion” Pagulayan clinched his advancement into Friday’s rounds with an 8-6 win over Dennis Orcollo. Tied at 5 apiece after a lengthy match, Orcollo runs out for the lead but scratches on the break. Craftily, Pagulayan played safe, and when Orcollo fouled, he played safe yet again. He successfully three-fouled Orcollo to tie the match. Two break and run-outs sealed the deal. Pagulayan, Orcollo, and Rodolfo Luat advance from that group.“I’m still alive,” said an exhausted Pagulayan, lacking his usual spunk. “I needed to win that match.”Who’s taller? “Him,” Pagulayan replied, crestfallen. IPT discussion forumDay 5 image galleryMatch scheduleEfren “Bata” Reyes squeaked by into Friday’s matches by virtue of a hill-hill win that had a huge throng of spectators crowded around it. Running out against Mick Hill from the U.K., Reyes came within millimeters of scratching in the corner when he pocketed the last 8 ball in the side, causing great consternation within the audience.
“I don’t know what to do in that last game,” Reyes confessed. “There was too much pressure, and every shot was hard to make. I was shaking. I needed it to go into tomorrow—otherwise, I was out. I feel ready for tomorrow now that I am safe.”From there, the crowd moved over to Earl Strickland’s match against Ronato Alcano. Everyone was awaiting the outcome because nothing was cut and dried as far as who would advance from that group. Quinten Hann with four wins was definite, but the rest of the group was murky. So the pressure was on the Strickland/Alcano match.Alcano, who won the Manila stop of the 2005 San Miguel Asian 9-Ball Tour, soon held a 4-1 lead, but Strickland fought back to tie, and from there it was a free-for-all. Finally it was hill-hill—both had an early miss, and it came down to Alcano leaving his last ball hanging in the pocket. Strickland missed again, and Alcano ran out but left himself an almost 45-degree cut on the 8 off the rail. He made it, barely escaping the scratch, to great applause. He turned 34 today.“Now I am happy,” Alcano reported, “because I am into the next round. I was worried I might not make it. There was too much pressure, and I was tired and hungry. I am going to try to improve, because I was not happy with how I played today, even though I beat Strickland.”With that outcome to the match, Alcano, Hohmann, and Hann advanced. Strickland is out.Niels Feijen, who was in Pagulayan’s group, won his last match 8-2 over Yannick Beaufils but just got passed over by slightly more than 1% of the games-won statistics. Marcus Chamat cemented his advancement with an 8-5 victory over Raj Hundal, eliminating “The Hitman.” Also advancing from that group is Evgeny Stalev, who won a hill-hill match over Jason Kirkwood. American hope Corey Deuel narrowly missed moving on, losing to Marlon Manalo 8-3. Dave Matlock continued to have a great day, winning four out of five matches. In his last match, he dominated Shawn “Big Bubba” Putnam 8-5. He is the not the only one in his group to have four wins for the day—former World All-Around champion Larry Nevel also won four out of five of his matches and clinched his advancement. Interestingly, of the three who advanced from this group, all reached this event via a qualifier.Group 75 had two players win four games each as well: Daryl Peach and Marlon Manalo. Three players had two games, which meant that it came down to the games-won percentage again, with Darren Appleton squeaking by. Peach, when asked how he felt about his day, replied, “Definitely the best I have played in the tournament so far, and I feel more confident as things go on. I beat some big players: Archer, Deuel, you don’t get any bigger than that, so I am over the moon.”Australia’s Quinten Hann had a fantastic day as well, winning four of five matches. The rest of his group was on tenterhooks, as the final decision came down to who won and lost. He played his first day with a snooker cue because he didn’t own a pool cue. When asked if he would use the snooker cue again, he said, “It’s impossible to play with it. It has a nine-point-seven mill tip, so one millimeter of either side of the middle throws a lot, and it has no power. I must have been on crack thinking I could play with it.”“Rocket” Rodney Morris only won one match today, losing his last against Ralf Souquet 8-5. The German advances, having won three matches today.“I won eight-five, but I wasn’t happy at all with the way I played,” Souquet said discontentedly. “Just made too many mistakes and position errors, never really felt comfortable and kept struggling. Luckily, he didn’t play that well either … it was a tough one. I knew I had to win. I wasn’t breaking well and not good cue ball control today. I didn’t sleep well last night. This turned out to be one of my worst days. It can only be better tomorrow, even though I won three matches.”Round 5 Group 79Group 74Group 75C. DeuelM. ManaloD. PeachA. LelyS. TotD. AppletonGroup 76D. OrcolloA. PagulayanM. ImmonenN. FeijenY. BeaufilsR. LuatGroup 77A. LiningR. MartinezS. PutnamL. NevelR. DiksD. MatlockGroup 78R. SouquetR. MorrisJ. KirkwoodM. ChamatR. HundalE. StalevVisit Inside POOL Magazine for the latest pool and billiard news from the North American Open 8-Ball Championship.

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