Dominguez Wins Shooters Riverside Event

Dominguez Wins Shooters Riverside Event By InsidePOOL StaffShooters Third Annual Labor Day 9-Ball Open drew a top field of 110 entrants from around the West Coast, but in the end it was local player Ernesto Dominguez who triumphed in the finals over Rafael Martinez by the nail-biting score of 11-10. The event was held at Shooters in Riverside, CA, and began on Saturday, August 30, and concluded on September 1.With players such as Dave "The Wave" Hemmah, Ismael "Morro" Paez, Dan Wallace, Shane Manaole, and Santos Sambajon, this was truly a tough field. The defending champion from last year was Efren Reyes, who defeated Russian world-beater Evgeny Stalev twice in the finals. Dominguez won the inaugural event by defeating feared San Diego player Shane Manaole for first place. This year, Reyes was attending the World Pool Masters in Holland, although he did win Shooters' one-pocket tournament the previous Sunday and celebrated his birthday there last Tuesday.
With a crowd of over 600 attendees, the event was standing-room only during the last day. Lorry DeLeon and Rafael Martinez faced off, with Martinez emerging victorious by the score of 9-4. DeLeon went on to play Dominguez in the match for third place.Dominguez was knocked into the B side of chart by Arizona sharpshooter Jimmy Mendoza. In the one-loss bracket, Dominguez defeated Dan Wallace, Shane Manaole, Mendoza, and Bernardo "King Kong" Chavez. In his hill-hill match with Danny Medina, winner of the Reno Open last December 2002, which was a race to 7 in the one-loss bracket, Dominguez thought that Medina had committed a foul and asked him twice if he should take ball-in-hand. Thinking that he had answered in the affirmative, Dominguez picked up the cue ball, only to have Medina object. The players discussed the problem with the tournament director and decided that the best way to resolve the issue was to play a race to 3, which Dominguez won 3-1. After this string of victories, DeLeon was no match for the seasoned pro, and Dominguez banished his opponent to third place. As the tension grew within the room, he then went on to play the final match against Rafael Martinez, another excellent pro who is the current point leader on the Pechauer West Coast Tour. The match was hard-fought, and at the end of the hill-hill battle, Dominguez emerged 11-10 to take top honors.1st - Ernesto Dominguez $4,0002nd - Rafael Martinez $3,0003rd - Lorry DeLeon $2,0004th - Danny Medina $1,0005th/6th - Santos Sambajon, Bernardo Chavez $7007th/8th - Danny Petralba, Jimmy Mendoza $5009th/12th - Shane Manaole, Aaron Aragon, Bill Ussery, Scotty Morgan $35013th/16th - Marshall Jung, Oscar Dominguez, Dan Wallace, Damien Allishon $250Terence Yoshizawa and Jim Davis, two of the top three "C" players earned $330 each for their excellent play during the course of this event. The total purse amounted to $18,250. Visit InsidePOOL for the latest updates from the sport of billiards and pool.

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