Derby City: Bigfoot Challenge Afternoon Update

By: Markus Noé

The Bigfoot 10 Ball Challenge continued this afternoon with some thrilling match-ups. First up was recent Turning Stone Champion Jayson Shaw against former World Champion Alex "The Lion" Pagulayan. With the way Shaw ran through opponents during the last few months and with Pagulayan playing more snooker than rotation as of late, the early betting odds most likely favoured Shaw.

It was a slow start for both players the first four racks as each made mistakes which allowed them to trade racks. From there Shaw began winning the safety exchanges and combined with a break and run came out to a 5-3 lead after 8 racks. From here Pagulayan became suffocating in his safety play and his overall style of play seemed to be a big advantage on these tough conditions. As Shaw is more of a gunslinger who relies on his shot-making abilities to get him through while Pagulayan plays near perfect position and very tight pattern plays. On this 10 foot Diamond with pro cut pockets, getting out of line at times cost Shaw as he rattled a few key shots he perhaps would not have on a 9 foot. In the end the "Lion" prevailed with  an 11-7 scoreline.

The next match of the afternoon session featured another Canadian John Morra against hall of fame member Francisco Bustamante. Morra got off to a very rough start missing a simple 10 ball early and made a few other uncharacteristic mistakes. Bustamante compounded this with some great safeties and a few clearances to push his lead to 6-1. Things did not look good for Morra as he was not only spotting 5 games on the wire to one of the best players ever, but this is a single elimination format meaning you lose and your out.

At 7-5 down, Morra kept exchanging racks with Bustamante until the scoreline was 10-8 for the Filipino. In this rack Bustamante made an error allowing Morra to run out and then he was able to break and run to force a double hill match. A dry break by Morra meant his opponent would get a chance to run out, however this was a tricky rack and a misplayed 4 ball by Bustamante forced him to tie up the 5 and the 9 ball giving Morra ball in hand. An elaborate and very educational safety battle for those lucky enough to witness this match ensued. After about 6 safety exchanges Morra had an opportunity to run out and he did not let it slip away, going on to get the impressive 11-10 win.

The evening matches start immediately with Johnny Archer taking on Shane Van Boening, after that Canadian Jason Klatt and Ruben Bautista square in the 9 p.m. time slot. Make sure to check out Accu-Stats to purchase your live stream pass to catch tonight's actions.