Vic S. Hocog and Roger Espiritu capped 2004 with dominating performances in last week\u2019s 9-ball tournaments over at Corner Pocket in Garapan.<\/p>\n
Hocog, whose confidence is soaring sky high as of late, won the Monday 9-Ball Tournament last Dec. 27 following a thorough beat-down of the game\u2019s hottest player, Jerry Soriano, in the finals.<\/p>\n
The big Chamorro started strong after he beat Rommel Crisostomo, 5-1, in the first round. Soriano also had a stellar debut, drubbing Top Pool Bar manager Zheng Jian Qing, 5-2.<\/p>\n
Other opening round results had Rolly Villanueva edge James Cabrera (4-3), Primo Rivera oust defending champion Joey Lucido (4-2), Senen Pangilinan top Manny Mariano (4-2), and Roger Espiritu knock off upset-conscious Erick Caisip (5-3). Leonard Sablan and Luis Fajardo got byes.<\/p>\n
In the second round, Hocog and Soriano continued to breeze through the field. Hocog gave Fajardo a lot of fits en route to the 5-1 win, while Soriano had no trouble disposing of Villanueva despite his high handicap, 6-2.<\/p>\n
Other second round matches had Rivera slip by Sablan (4-3), and Pangilinan skunk a shocked Espiritu (4-0).<\/p>\n
In the semis, Hocog and Soriano finally separated themselves from title pretenders with the latter dismantling Pangelinan, 4-2, and the former thumping Rivera, 6-2.<\/p>\n
It was not much of a contest in the finals, as Hocog got into a groove early and never let up to overcome Soriano, 4-2.<\/p>\n
Espiritu, for his part, lost just a total of four games in winning the championship of the Thursday 9-Ball Tournament last Dec. 30.<\/p>\n
Drawing Juancho Mendoza in the finals, Espiritu surrendered just two games, 5-2, to hoist the title. In the semis, Espiritu brought out his \u201cA\u201d game and shutout Primo Rivera, 5-0. Mendoza, for his part, had to squeeze out a 4-3 win over Mario Diola.<\/p>\n
In the opening round, Espiritu got his revenge, beating Monday conqueror Pangilinan, 4-2, and Mendoza defeated Manny Mariano with the same score. Other first round matches had Diola outclass Ganover Rettin and Rivera edge Nolan Cultura, 4-3.<\/p>\n
Corner Pocket\u2019s Monday 9-Ball Tournament rolls off every Monday beginning at 9pm. The competition uses a handicap system to give beginners a chance against top-caliber players. Entry fee is $10 and first place and second place are guaranteed prize money.<\/p>\n
The Thursday 9-Ball Tournament, meanwhile, is played in the fifth day of the week. Play starts at 8:30pm. Participants must fork over $15 to enter the double-elimination competition.<\/p>\n
Both 9-ball tournaments use the rules of the Billiards Congress of America. For more information on the regular Monday 9-Ball Tournament and Thursday 9-Ball Tournament, contact Phillips at 233-POOL (7665).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Vic S. Hocog and Roger Espiritu capped 2004 with dominating performances in last week\u2019s 9-ball tournaments over at Corner Pocket in Garapan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}