Jayson Shaw (File photo courtesy of Dave Thomson - Medium Pool)
With his win over Shane Van Boening in the finals of the Turning Stone Classic XXXI, Jayson Shaw has now tied Johnny Archer with six career Turning Stone Classic wins.
A 9-7 loss to Finland’s Petri Makkonen on Saturday left Shaw in unfamiliar territory on the one loss side, and his first match on the left side of the board was a close one, with John Morra falling one rack short of sending Shaw home early.
Shaw got things together nicely on Sunday and scored back-to-back lopsided wins over Zion Zvi (9-3) and Tommy Tokoph (9-2). Estonia’s Denis Grabe gave Shaw a bit more of a challenge in a 9-6 match and then Jeremy Sossei fell to Shaw 9-4 in the semi-finals.
The extended final race to thirteen against Van Boeing started out a little slow with safety battles on each rack. Shaw was able to take his first multi rack lead at 4-2 and he then quickly built on that lead with a 4 pack to give himself a comfortable 8-2 lead. Van Boening fought back, but struggles with his break kept him from being able to mount any major comeback as Shaw went on to score a 13-6 win for Turning Stone Classic Title #6.
