"Young Guns" Defeat "Old School" in Epic match-up at Teachers Billiards

By: Markus Noé

This past weekend at Teachers Billiards and Sports Cafe in St. Peters, Missouri, a challenge match dubbed "Young Guns" vs "Old School" took place. This pitted hall a fame inductee Johnny Archer and former U.S Open Champion Rodney Morris up against Justin Bergman and Sky Woodward. 

 Most of you would recognize Bergman from his first Mosconi Cup appearance last year and his $20,000 win at Smoking Aces. During this time Woodward has also been making a splash winning his own $20,000 Smoking Aces event along with a $16,000 win at the Carom Room Spring Classic. 

As you can see from the poster above this was a $20,000 challenge match, which began with Johnny Archer calling out the two young guns. Originally Archer wanted to play Mosconi Cup teammates Justin Bergman and Justin Hall who perhaps were among the most useful players for the American team, however Hall declined to participate in this match. This allowed a very capable Sky Woodward to step in. 

Photo courtesy of Richard Schenck

Much to the delight of room owner Richard Schenck, Mosconi Cup team captain Mark Wilson and Derrick Keith agreed to commentate on the live stream and MC the event. The format for this event was 8, 9 and 10 ball with four singles matches and one doubles match for each game. The scotch doubles matches were worth 2 points each while the singles matches accounted for 1 point.

The "Young Guns" lead most of the way with but the "Old School" found a way to take a late lead in the event. Bergman was able to defeat Archer in a 10 ball single match, setting up a scotch doubles match to see which team would win this challenge. Bergman/Woodward got off to an early start as they were breaking at a higher level. Archer/Morris were never able to recover from this early lead and eventually lost this set the 9-5, with the overall score being 10-8.

Photo courtesy of Richard Schenck

I would like to thank Richard Schenck for provided me with all the information necessary to write this article. He also mentioned that there has been a lot of interest from other players who would like to step up and challenge Bergman and Woodward. In the future Schenck said these type of events will be played in a King of the Hill format, with the winning team staying on as the team to beat in the next event. 

Photo Courtesy of Richard Schenck

An arena was set up with two 9 ft Diamond tables by themselves which was surrounded by spectators for this event. It was also streamed by www.oncue2.com   which was said to be a great success I look forward to seeing more of these types of events. From my brief conversation with Schenck it was apparent that Missouri has a great ambassador for pool as he said, "Pool will always be a bottom feeder unless the billiard rooms organize and lift the sport. I'm doing my part. I encourage others to join me."

When asked about the venue and the event Justin Bergman had this to say, "It was top notch. I live in the area and the owner has been doing a lot for pool this year and wants to do even bigger things. I think it's the best pool room in the Midwest."