Filipino Upset!

Jun 7, 2017

The 10 ball season is coming to an end with finales fast approaching. There was $1,150 up for grabs this week, not including the calcutta. With a field over 32 players there was going to be plenty of competition for this week’s round of shooters. Among the favorites were: John Andrade, Ronald Giron, Greg Gauthier, and Alan Ada.
Starting with the last 12, on the A side there was: Greg Gautier vs Steve Rocamora, and Jehlar Fernandez versus John Andrade. On the B side stood Romeo Zulueta versus Gene Chip, Andy Mizan versus Ronald Giron, Darwin Madraija versus Brenden Croft, and Jake Cailig versus Rafiq Kassam. In the first A side match Greg seemed to have most of the control in the set against Steve winning 8-2 and advancing to the A side final. This would still give Steve a chance as he was only pushed to the B side. The other match however, was much closer. Jehlar and John were going back to back with each other none relinquishing control of the match. Jehlar did manage to reach his marker first by 6 games to 5.
Now for the string of B side matches. Romeo and Gene in another all Filipino match went right down to the wire. The little man Gene remains resilient and edges out a win hill-hill. A similar story can be said for the next B side match between Andy and Ronald. This time Ronald squeezes out the win to face Gene in another all Filipino match. Both players familiar with hill-hill matches decide to do another and once again it is the Gene the grinder who manages to beat Ronald 6-6. Gene is becoming this week’s king of hill-hill matches as he grinds out another against Steve Rocamora sending Steve out of the tournament and Gene now guarantees himself 4th place!
The other half of the B side was slightly less exciting. Brendan almost manages to take out Titan Darwin losing hill-hill. Jake and Rafiq also had a hill-hill match with Rafiq coming out on top showing that the + system makes a difference with Jake being a 5+ and Rafiq being a 5. Rafiq at this point was the only other non-filipino other than Steve on the B side. Rafiq’s run was soon ended by Darwin losing 2 matches to 7. This now left John and Darwin to play against each other, a match that could have gone either way however, with John’s recent form you would give him the edge. This time the edge meant nothing as Darwin took control of the match and won 7-4.
With only 4 players left, Gene, Darwin, Jehlar and Greg. Greg was severely outnumbered countryman wise but was sitting in the best position to take home the title. Gene’s grind finally comes to a halt against Darwin losing 7-4. Darwin now advances to the B side final against Jehlar who teaches Darwin a lesson or two winning 6-2. Jehlar now gives himself a chance at revenge. Jehlar, however, comes up short leaving Greg with this week’s 10 Ball Champion Title! Greg manages to overcome the massive amount of Filipinos in this tournament to take home $850 calcutta included.

Thank you all for coming out to support Shooter’s events! We will see you all next week for the 404 Finale. With the winter season wrapping up with this tournament we are likely to see a lot of big names!
Prizes (Calcutta not included):

Greg Gauthier - $430
Jehlar Fernandez - $280
Darwin Madraija - $180
Gene Chipongian - $120
Steve Rocamora - $70
John Andrade - $70