Victory!

After returning from the Super Billiards Expo late Sunday night, I had to return to league play on Monday. We had locked up last place already for the season (thankfully, the playoffs are a random draw), so we were just playing the role of spoilers trying to knock the other team out of the money spots. I played a lower handicap, so it was a 5-4 race and I was also giving up a ball each game. The guy wasn't great, but I made a few mistakes which kept him in the match. I think it was the fourth rack where I tried to jump a ball, but didn't clear it and ended up pocketing the 8 instead. I did have a few flashes of brilliance making some bank shots. I actually banked the 8 ball in on two different occasions and might have actually ended up making more banks than I missed. In another game, the 8 was dead set on a kiss from one of his object balls and I was able to make that. Eventually though, the match got to hill-hill. I missed a long bank, but my opponent failed to get good position on the 8. He played as good of a safety as you could (see diagram), leaving me with one option shown on page 2. He failed to make the long shot off the rail and the balls fortuitously left me straight in on the 8 for the win. Hopefully this momentum gets carried over in to the playoffs!