Pendley fights back from the one-loss side to take GSBT stop

Adam Pendley worked his way through seven opponents on the one-loss side to  meet and defeat Danny Smith in the finals of the Great Southern Billiard Tour stop on the weekend of October 24-25. Pendley was among 61 entrants who signed on for the $1,500-added, A-B handicapped event, hosted by the Pool Room in Duluth, GA.

Smith advanced into the hot seat from among the winners' side final four with a 9-6 victory over Jim Jennings and an 11-8 win over Jennings' son, Marty, who'd just sent Ron Gilbert west 9-6. Father and son flirted with a head-to-head matchup twice among the event's final 12, but were denied the opportunity twice; once by Smith and once by Pendley in the quarterfinals.

After opening round victories over Thomas Morrison and Danny Archer, Pendley moved west on the heels of an 11-4 victory by EuGene Browning, who'd join him in the left bracket in the next round. Pendley, who'd allowed Morrison (2) and Archer (3) only five racks through 23 games, re-established his rhythm on the one-loss side with a 9-1 victory over Hugh Osborne and a 9-5 win versus Danny Turner that put him among the final 12. He went on to defeat Jeff Tabet 9-4 and Allen Wong 9-3 for the right to meet Gilbert. Jason Steman, in the meantime, after wins over Scott Lewis 9-8 and Matt Reed 9-6, was there to meet the elder Jennings.

Pendley shut out Gilbert, as Jennings edged out a win over Steman 9-7 and the two met in the quarterfinals. A victory by Jennings would have created a father-son semifinal, but Pendley duplicated Smith's wins over father and son, by defeating the father (Jim) 9-6 and the son (Marty) in the semifinals 9-2.

Going into the true double elimination finals, Pendley had allowed opponents an average of just under  four racks per match. The average would have been under three had it not been for his 11-4 defeat at the hands of Browning in the third round. In that sense, he struggled a bit versus Smith, allowing him to take five racks, twice, but the two 9-5 victories held his tournament average at just under four (12 matches in which he gave up a total of 47 racks) and allowed him to take home the $1,000, first-place prize.