28/01/2020
Southerns 8 Ball Tournament Report
*Individual Championships*
Clarence started off his first round match badly going down 2-0 from the off. However he quickly rallied to pull off a spectacular comeback that included a break dish to win 3-2 and progress into the round of 64. He then struggled to play up to his best in the next round and got knocked out of the inidividuals in the round of 64.
LCW on the other hand played brilliantly to achieve his best ever individual results in any tournament into the round of 32. Unfortunately, he then ran into Jordan Graham, England Under 23 player and duly got whooped out of the individuals.
Diego, Kevin, Miles and Adrian played admirably but couldn't overcome strong opponents in the first round.
*Individual Shield*
Our team 2 players drew pretty strong opponents as they all got knocked out in round 1 with Dion playing a very close fought match and the rest showing remarkable skill and improvement.
However, Dafydd managed to surprise us all by oversleeping for his individual match, barely managing to arrive in time for it and then surprising us even more by storming into the round of 32 before losing a close match 2-1.
*Team Group Stages*
LSE 2nds faced off tough opponents Warwicks 1sts, Exeter 2nds and UEA 1sts in their group but achieved very encouraging results with Alex and Zhe Yi getting wins against Exeter 2nds and UEA 1sts in their 1st english pool competition while Dafydd also got another 2 wins.
Unfortunately, in the Team Shield knockout stages, two of our members had to leave, as the team forfeited 4 frames and suffered a quick knockout.
LSE 1sts got off to a decent start beating UCL 2nds 6-3 but played solidly to draw with 5th seeds Southampton 1sts 5-5 and beat Essex 3rds 6-3 to qualify 2nd in the group (by a frame difference of 1) for the Team Championships.
Our first match in the Round of 16 of the knockout stages were none other than our local rivals UCL 1sts. It was a close derby but we managed to reign supreme as London's superior pool team for this tournament, as an escape that went wrong saw the black ball and their dreams sink prematurely.
Bristols 1sts were up next in the quarterfinals and this was a team filled with experienced winners. We started off poorly going 2-0 down but with Clarence's gutsy performance with a never say die spirit, we managed to tie the score and pull ahead. As our opponents became rattled, we played with more confidence and eventually as Diego's black ball agonizingly stopped over the pocket for 2 seconds before dropping into the pocket, we celebrated with joy as the 1sts made it to a semi final of an English 8 ball tournament for the first time since we were established in 2016.
Unfortunately, we ran out of gas as we duly got pumped by Plymouth's 1sts (Jordan Graham whooped LCW again... T.T) before being beaten by Southampton's 1sts in the 3rd place playoff to come in 4th for the tournament.
Overall, it is an amazing result and we hope to deliver another strong performance for BUCS 8-ball next week!
