The Diamond Pool Tour held their 6th stop of the year – and first stop at Metro Sportz Bar – on September 10th – 11th, with a field of 56 players playing 9-ball on the 7’ Diamond Smart Tables. While the event held it’s fair share of surprises, it was Mitch Ellerman notching his second straight tour stop win.
The “A” bracket’s field of fifteen players saw Mitch Ellerman ride the top of the bracket with wins over Bret Huth, Jason Sweet and Scott Frost. Meanwhile on the bottom half of the bracket, it was last year’s “A” player points list winner Brian Reich making his mark. Reich had wins over Chuck Evans, Mike Sandoval and Bobby Emmons to earn his place against Ellerman for the hot-seat. While Ellerman’s win over Reich was not a real surprise, what was surprising was the 9-0 scoreline. On the one loss side, Frost was looking for another shot at Ellerman. Frost eliminated Sandoval, Emmons and Reich to earn that shot.
One nice addition to the “A” bracket was another appearance by Arizona pool veteran Tommy Dilorenzo. Tommy came out of retirement at the August stop at Kolby’s with mixed results. This month saw more of the player that Arizona is familiar with, as Dilorenzo had wins over Bryan Bach and Aaron Purdy. Dilorenzo’s two losses, to Ray Robles and Chuck Evans, were both hill-hill matches that could have gone either way. It’s good to see Tommy back in action and we expect pool fans will see his “A” game in full force very soon.
In contrast to the “A” bracket, the “B” bracket’s 41 players saw an early surprise with points leader Karloz Chavez going “two and out” in the event. Chavez lost a hill-hill decision to Susan Williams and was then eliminated by Manny Luevano 9-7. The top half of the bracket was won by Oscar Avila, while the bottom half was won by Metro regular Eric Osburn. Both players fought their way through more than their share of close matches to get to the hot-seat match, and then that match was another close one with Avila earning a hill-hill win over Osburn. The one loss side saw George Bell on a roll. Bell had lost to Rick Schmitz in his first match of the day, but he was still alive eight matches later. After eliminated Mike McGovern 9-6, Bell went on to send Osburn to the cheap seats 9-5.
While the tournament saw a number of Metro regulars come out to support the tour, two players that earned attention were Susan Williams and junior player Nathan McGovern. Williams, the sole female in the field kept up her winning ways after the first round match with Chavez. Williams went on to beat Dana Moore and Tim Rachu, before falling to Osburn in round four. Williams came back on Sunday, but was eliminated early Sunday by George Bell. While McGovern, the only junior player in the field, didn’t win any matches, the pool gods were not kind in the draw they gave him. After a second round loss to Seth Johnson, McGovern had to then take on Luevano. McGovern gave it his all, and we hope to see him at a future event to give it another try.
Before Sunday player could get underway, tournament director Chuck Parrill and Metro Sportz Bar owner John Upshaw had to reconfigure the room to make room for a larger than originally expected football crowd. John and Chuck didn’t miss a beat as they roped off six tables and gave the tournament players as much space as they could manage for day two of the event.
When the brackets came together, it was a rematch from a month ago with Ellerman facing Avila for the overall hot-seat once again. This match went to Ellerman 9-4. On the one loss side, Frost was eliminating Bell in 4th place 9-3. Seeing his rematch with Ellerman only a match away, Frost then made quick work of Avila in a 9-0 match. The overall final match went one set, with Ellerman scoring a hill-hill win for his second straight Diamond Pool Tour win.
Ellerman’s win gives him a 200 point lead on the “A” players points list, with two events left to play. Barring Ellerman missing an event, Frost will have a tough time catching him. The “B” players points list, on the other hand, is much closer. Chavez’s “two and out” was the opening that Avila needed to catch him, and Avila now enjoys a 40 point lead over Chavez. Rick Schmitz is in a distant third place, 135 points back.
As always, “Fast” Lenny Marshall provided excellent streaming coverage of the event, and Rick Schmitz took great pictures of all of the tour competitors. John Upshaw and his staff did a great job of taking care of the players and fans all weekend long.
The tour will finish up it’s regular season in October with two stops. Pockets in Tucson will host big table 9-ball on October 1st – 2nd, and then Skip and Jan’s will be the location for Barbox 8-ball. These two stops will be the last chance that players have to play in the requisite two events in order to qualify for the season finale at Casino Del Sol in Tucson on November 17th – 20th.
The Desert Classic Tour closed out their 2014 season at Bullshooters in Phoenix on December 6th and 7th, and Mitch Ellerman took the opportunity to remind the Arizona pool player community that he is still the man to beat on the Desert Classic Tour.
Chuck Evans looked to be on his way to another strong finish until he ran into Ritonya on the winners side. The loss to Ritonya was followed by by a loss to Will Sexton and Evans finished out of the money.
A welcome guest on the tour for this event was WPBA veteran Sarah Rousey. Rousey admitted that she was out of stroke and took a “two and out” finish after losing to Sexton and Ray Robles.
Sunday play got underway with six players left in the running. Ellerman and Ritonya were the final two on the winners side, with Tim Daniel, Dennis Orender, Brian Reich and Rudy Alameda all hoping they could still win the event from the one loss side.
Daniel ended Orender’s tournament with an 8-5 scoreline, and Reich sent Alameda back to Tucson in 5th place with an identical 8-5 score.
The match for 3rd and 4th place came down to a notable finish that said quite a bit about Brian Reich. Reich and Tim Daniel were tied at hill-hill and Reich had a tough shot on the 5 ball. With the fans staring at the 5-ball to see if Reich would make a good hit, Reich tapped the cue ball with his cue. Reich presented a surprised Daniel with ball-in-hand and Daniel gladly ran out the rack for the win. While someone who doesn’t know Reich might have been surprised by him calling the foul on himself, anyone who knows him would have expected nothing less.
Back on the winners side, Ellerman was running out at will and turned in a 10-3 trouncing of Ritonya for the hot-seat.
It took some time for Ritonya to recover from the loss to Ellerman and he came out slow in the semi-final against Daniel. Ritonya would come back to make it a hill-hill match, but Daniel would win the case game to win the match 8-7 and earn the right to take his shot at Ellerman in the finals.
Unfortunately for Daniel, he discovered just how hard it is to beat a motivated Mitch Ellerman as Ellerman cruised to a 10-1 win in the first and only set of the finals.
Tournament director Dennis Orender expressed his thanks to Mike and Julie Bates, as well as all of the staff at Bullshooters for hosting another great tournament.
While this event signaled the end of the 2014 season, plans are already underway with lots of changes for the upcoming 2015 season. In addition to the new junior program announced in these pages last month, many more announcements regarding format changes and sponsorship can be found in this month’s paper on page 8.
Traditionally, in order to win a pool tournament, a player either takes the hot-seat or beats the person in the hot-seat. There are those rare occasions though, where that is not the case. The opening event on Desert Classic Tour's 2014 schedule at Bullshooters in Phoenix on February 22nd and 23rd was one of those rare occasions as Chuck Evans won the event from the one loss side and never faced Mitch Ellerman in the hot-seat.
Saturday play saw the field of forty four players battle it out to see which eight players would qualify for Sunday play. While Saturday usually has it's fair share of upsets, Saturday play at this event saw mostly top players beating other top players. The day featured very few surprises.
Possibly the biggest upset of the day came at the end of the biggest story of the day, that being the outstanding play of Sara Miller. Sara won her first three matches on Saturday – with wins over Sam Yonki, Tenadore Lee and Ray Robles – before dropping a match to Chuck Evans. On the one loss side, Sara found Mike Williams waiting. Mike had just eliminated Sara's fiancé Tres Kane, but that didn't phase Miller as she quickly ended Williams' tournament with a 7-2 beat down.
Sunday began with four players left on each side of the board. The winners side saw Bret Huth with a dominating 8-2 win over Chuck Evans, and Mitch Ellerman with an equally dominating 10-3 win over Jim Henrickson.
Meanwhile, the one loss side saw Miller picking up where she left off on Saturday and eliminating Ken Gouso 7-4, while Brian Reich was sending Andy Kachur to the rail 8-3.
Miller kept on rolling in the next round, and defeated Henrickson 7-3, with Reich succumbing to Evans in a tough hill-hill match.
The match for the hot-seat saw Ellerman take a hill-hill decision over Huth, and then have to forfeit out of the tournament in order to catch his flight for the US Barbox Championship.
Sara Miller's magic weekend finally came to an end as she appeared to run out of gas against Chuck Evans. Evans took control of a 1-1 match and won seven straight games for the 8-1 victory.
The semi-final match, which also served as the final match with Ellerman halfway to Reno, saw Chuck Evans taking control early and racing to the hill at 7-3. Huth had problems getting any started until Evans was already on the hill. At 3-7 down, Huth made one last charge and he brought the match to within one game at 6-7 down, before Evans regained control and won the match 8-6.
The Desert Classic Tour returned to Skip & Jan’s Sports Bar in Tempe for the 5th stop on the 2013 schedule with a field of 32 players fighting it out on the 7’ Diamond Tables.
With the best players in the Valley in attendance, it was a slight surprise to see two players ranked outside of the top ten facing off for the hot-seat. #11 ranked Paul Grande started Sunday play with an 8-4 win over #3 ranked Rick Armbrust. Meanwhile, Pete Lhotka (ranked outside of the top 20) beat #1 ranked Mitch Ellerman 8-9 on Sunday morning. That left Lhotka and Grande playing for the hot-seat.
The hot-seat match would be a close one, with Grande coming out as the 8-7 winner.
While the left side of the board looked tough, a handful of the top players on tour didn’t even make it to Sunday play. Dennis Orender (ranked #2), Nick DeLeon (#4) and Bobby Emmons (#7) all suffered “three and out” performances on Saturday and were eliminated out of the money.
While Susan Williams didn’t make Sunday play, she scored her usual upsets over top players with wins over Ray Robles and Dennis Orender on Saturday.
Sunday play on the one loss side was all about “The Freezer”, Scott Frost. After a first round loss to Mike Sandoval on Saturday, Frost had won four matches on the left side of the board to earn his place in Sunday’s matches.
Frost kept things going with a 10-1 win over Tucson’s George Teyechea first thing Sunday morning. Meanwhile, Sandoval scored an 8-6 win over Rick Galloway.
The next round of play saw Frost scoring a 10-5 win over Ellerman and Armbrust eliminating Sandoval 7-5.
The match for fourth place saw Rick Armbrust hold a 3-2 lead over Scott Frost before Frost won eight straight games for a 10-3 win. Frost wasn’t done though, as he went on to win the first nine games against Pete Lhotka in the next match for an amazing run of seventeen games in a row. Lhotka would get on the scoreboard at 9-1, but Frost then closed the match out at 10-1.
The first set of the double elimination finals saw Frost race out to a 4-0 lead and then basically trade racks with Grande for a 10-6 win.
The second set of the finals looked to be going in the same direction for The Freezer as he quickly took a 4-1 lead. That was when Grande took control of the match. He won two games to get back within one rack at 4-3. Frost won another rack and Grande took the next two to tie things at 5-5. Grande then got to the hill at 7-5, leaving Frost needing to win five straight games for the victory. Frost would give it his all and win two in a row before Grande closed out the match with an 8-7 victory.
The Desert Classic Tour will be playing 14.1 at Pockets in Tucson on September 21st and 22nd for the next stop.
