Sunday, March 23, 2008 Orcollo grabs SMB QC 9-Ball tourney top purse
REIGNING world No.1 Dennis Orcollo bagged the crown and the top purse of the San Miguel Beer-Quezon City 9-Ball Championship last Wednesday night after edging out 2007 World Pool runnerup Robert Gomez, 13-9, in their finals match up last Wednesday night at the Trinoma Mall in Quezon City.
The 29-year-old Orcollo from Surigao del Sur was trailing, 0-3, in the earlier goings of the tournament, but Gomez’s breaks sank nothing in the pocket, giving the former the opportunity to crawl back and even the game at five all.
Orcollo took the lead for the first time at 6-5 and never looked back until he finally took the $10,000 top purse in the first major billiards tournament in the country.
Not lucky
Perry Mariano of Bugsy Promotions said yesterday that after the tie at five-all, Gomez’s breaks yielded nothing. On the other hand, when it was Orcollo’s turn to break, the ball hid. Though Gomez attempted to recover at the later part, it was too late.
On his way to the finals, Orcollo who was placed in a sudden-death situation as early as the third round, rose from the losers’ bracket as he eliminated qualifier Russian Petiza, 9-5, then defeated Ramil Gallego 11-7 in the semifinals to book a finals showdown against Gomez in the tournament that attracted some of the biggest names in Philippine billiards.
Challenge
Before beating Petiza and Gallego, Orcollo also had to survive stable mate and former double world champion Ronnie Alcano, 9-8, and Leornado Didal, 9-5, to stay in the hunt in the three-day competition. Gomez, on the other hand, defeated former world no.1 Francisco “Django” Bustamante in their semifinals match up, 11-4.
After his second round 9-6 loss to Gallego, Gomez stayed alive by beating former world champions Efren “Bata” Reyes (9-4) and Alex Pagulayan (9-4); blanked William Millares (9-0) trounced Carlo Biado 99-6) and Dondon Razalan (9-3). (NSM)
