Shannon “The Cannon” Daulton is sitting in the hot seat of the Galveston City One-Pocket event, awaiting the results of the semifinal match between Efrem Reyes and Cliff Joyner, scheduled for Thursday night, September 17 at 6 p.m. The finals, scheduled to be broadcast on Ustream, will follow immediately afterwards at 9 p.m.
According to Daulton, it was a couple of near misses in his opening matches that set him up to move on. After an opening round ‘bye,' Daulton was down 2-1 against Rodolfo Luat and came back to beat him. He repeated that come-from-behind performance in his third round match against Shane Van Boening. Through the next three matches, versus Francis Crevier, Dave Faver and Brandon Shuff, he didn't give up a single game. He did give up a game in the hot seat match against Efrem Reyes, but he got the three necessary to put him in the hot seat. On Wednesday afternoon, prior to signing on for the Classic's 10-Ball event, he was doing what he could to stay focused.
“Just trying to get all the rest I can and get in all of the practice that I can,” he said from Galveston, adding that the challenges he faced in his opening matches were the ‘fuel' for what followed.
“Yeah, being down two matches to one and winning them was pretty good,” he said. “That's what got me going; those first two matches.”
When it began on Friday, there were 44 entrants in two preliminary brackets. By mid-day on Monday, those two brackets had whittled down to a Final Eight bracket that included Daulton, Reyes, and Joyner, as well as Jeffery Heath, Brandon Shuff, Isaac Runnels, John Macias and Sylver Ochoa. Gone was an array of top-notch billiard talent that included the likes of Van Boening, John Schmidt, Ronnie Wiseman, Larry Nevel, Gabe Owen, Dennis Orcollo, Alex Pagalayun, Jonathan Pinegar, Charlie Bryant, Nick Varner, Francisco Bustamante, Corey Deuel, Sparky Ferrell, and Earl Strickland (to name just a few, in no particular order).
It was Reyes who knocked Wiseman out initially in third round action. It was one of five that he'd win against Jose Parica, Danny Smith, Isaac Runnels and Jeffery Heath, before “The Cannon” sent him to the one-loss side of the final eight bracket.
Heath was Pagalayun's un-doing in the fourth round, after he'd shutout Mark Lund, Joe Brown and Orcollo. Heath went on to shutout Macias, before Reyes turned the tables on him, sending him west with a shutout in the final eight bracket, where he fell to Joyner 3-0.
Runnels' advance to the final eight went through Gabe Owen (third round; 3-0) and Larry Nevel (fourth round; 3-1) before he was knocked out by Macias among the final eight. Macias had Oscar Dominguez on his list of victories, before Runnels sent him to the one-loss side of the final eight. He got by Brandon Shuff 3-2 there before falling to Joyner 3-0. Shuff had included Sparky Ferrell in his list of early victories and had advanced among the final eight with a 3-2 win over Joyner. He got knocked over to the one-loss side of the final eight by Daulton 3-0 and then dropped into the tie for fifth place on a 3-2 win by Macias. Ochoa got sent to the one-loss of his preliminary bracket by Shuff 3-2 and then went through Mike Dechaine 3-1, Corey Deuel 3-2, and Dave Faver to get into the final eight. He was dropped into the tie for seventh place by Joyner 3-2.
So, the stage is set for Thursday night's semifinal and final match. If previous matches are any sort of indication, the Ustream broadcast of this event will be hosting between 1,200 and 1,300 viewers at any given moment. In all, according to event representative Clark Rone, over 200,000 viewers have logged on to the Ustream broadcasts since they began on Friday, September 11.
