Team Europe won day two of the 2022 Mosconi Cup against the USA, tying the score at 4-4 at Bally’s Las Vegas live Sky Sports in the UK, DAZN in the USA, Canada, Italy, and Spain, Viaplay in the Baltics, Scandinavia, and Poland, and networks worldwide.
2022 Mosconi Cup Day 2 Overview
Earl Strickland and Jayson Shaw were chosen for the Fans’ Choice Singles Match, which started on Day 2. Strickland wanted to turn back the clock, but he did more than that when he came back to take an early 3-0 lead that made Shaw sit quietly in his chair. Shaw found his rhythm again in the fourth rack, and Strickland’s costly scratch in the fifth rack brought Shaw within one. When Strickland missed the ball in the sixth while trying to cut the eight in, Shaw had the easiest chance to tie things up again. Shaw, a two-time Most Valuable Player, soon finished the comeback. He excited the crowd and brought Team Europe within one game, bringing their overall score to 3-2.
Shane Van Boening playing Joshua Filler in the first singles match was never going to be boring, and it wasn’t. Van Boening ran out of balls in the third rack, giving Filler an easy 1-9 combination to win 2-1. There was a lot of life in the match, and when Filler had to drop out for an untimely reason, the score was tied at 3-3, much to the delight of the US fans. Filler lost his position in the seventh, but he had an amazing runout to first get to the top of the hill. After a brilliant break and run, Europe was tied at 3-3 overall.
The USA needed to stop Europe from winning, and it was up to Tyler Styer and Oscar Dominguez to do it against Filler and Albin Ouschan in match seven of the cup. Nothing could separate them until 3-3, when Styer made an uncharacteristic miss on a six into the middle pocket, allowing Filler and Ouschan to come back into the game and reach the hill first, making it look like an easy runout for the USA. Dominguez went airborne on the five in the next rack, a mistake because the Europeans finished the rest of the rack to get their third point of the day.
Francisco Sanchez Ruiz played Skyler Woodward, the USA’s vice-captain, in his first singles match. This was the last thing that happened that day. The crowd was cheering, but it quieted down when Sanchez Ruiz took a 2-0 lead. Woodward got lucky when he banked the six ball for the entire table length and then got a good position on the seven to cut the deficit. The crowd at home had high hopes, and Woodward quickly turned the game around to lead 3-2 and then 4-2 in a short time.
The play was stopped when Woodward got to the top of the hill because of a global broadcast outage. The players had to leave the track while a fix was made so people at home could keep watching live. When they got back, Sanchez Ruiz broke dry, and Woodward made sure that the USA would go into day three tied at 4-4 overall with a professional runout that included a beautiful jump on the one, securing a crucial point as Europe won day two 3-1.
READ ALSO: Mosconi Cup 2022 Results & Fixtures