2023 EC Youth – 8 Ball Glory For Pongers, Vogel and Ghaffari

8 BALL WAS the game and three more champions were crowned this evening in Podčetrtek, Slovenia at the 2023 Dynamic Billard European Youth Pool Championships. Yannick Pongers (NED) defended the title he won last year, while Germany’s Felix Vogel added to last year’s 10 ball gold and finally, Turkish Cypriot Alara Ghaffari got her hands on a gold medal after a valiant come-back win.

Pongers, who enjoyed a superb 2022 Championships with two golds and a silver is on track to repeat that feat as he comfortably took the 8 ball gold, beating Germany’s Dennis Laszkowski by 7-2. It was Dennis’s second silver of the Championships and both he and Pongers will be going all out in the final discipline of 9 ball.

Pongers took the opener in free-wheeling style after winning the lag before Laszkowski found a pocket off his break in the second game and took on the solid balls. With no problems ahead of him, he ran through it to level the match.

Pongers made a ball in the next, creating an inviting spread and elected to shoot the stripes.

It didn’t take too long to clear his balls and reassert his one-rack lead. In what was a high-quality match, Dennis ran through the table to draw level at 2-2.

Pongers lost the initiative in the next game as he delivered the first dry break of the match. The last two solids were slightly tricky for Laszkowski and he failed to roll the blue 2 into the centre pocket to hand the table back to Pongers. From there, he ran the stripes to restore his lead.

Laszkowski dropped two solids off his break but missed a long 7 ball to gift Pongers a great chance to increase his lead. He took it to move 4-2 ahead. Dennis got back to the table in the next, selecting a combination into the top right corner but it failed to comes off, leaving the red 2 hanging for Pongers. It wasn’t the easiest lay out but Yannick plotted his way around to move to 5-2 in the race to seven.

He took the next against the break before making a great job of his opening shot in what was the rack. He went for the solids which were all nicely available. He left himself a little short on the final ball but there were no last minute problems for the flying Dutchman as he rolled home the black to add a gold medal to his sliver in the straight pool division.

Commented Pongers, “It was unbelievable for me as I didn’t expect it.

Last year was pretty unbelievable too so to stay European Champion is crazy. I love to play, and the more matches the more fun. Hopefully again in the 9 ball it will be the same as last year. I’m extra motivated to win that one as well so we’ll see what happens but I’ll do everything to get that gold medal again.”

U19 Medals
Gold –  Yannick Pongers (NED)
Silver – Dennis Laszkowski (GER)
Bronze –  Finn Boge (GER)
Wiktor Fortunski (POL)

Felix Vogel, who won gold in the 10 ball at the 2022 Championships, matched that this year as he defeated Finland’s Riku Romppanen 6-2 to take 8 ball gold. The likeable young German dominated the match to deny Romppanen his second gold medal of the games.

The Finn had won the straight pool gold and is shaping up to be a formidable force with some great results in men’s pool but it was certainly Vogel’s night. With the win, he also earned himself a spot in the World Junior Championships later in the year in Klagenfurt, Austria.

Vogel had lost a heart-breaker in the final of the U17s 10 ball on Saturday as he went down to Maks Benko in a thrilling hill-hill match, but this one more than makes up for it.

Commented Vogel, “It was really painful the 10 ball final but it gave me more energy and more motivation to win the next title. I was more focused and I think I played my best billiards in this discipline.

“I thought just take my chances – I know that Riku is not perfect and I know I will have my chances and I took them. I’m really excited for the World Championship and I’m really motivated to win it. Excited!”

U17 Medals
Gold –  Felix Vogel (GER)
Silver – Riku Romppanen (FIN)
Bronze – Luka Bugarski (SER)
Revo Maimre (EST)

The girl’s final ended Alara Ghaffari’s year-long wait for a European Championship gold medal as she dug deep and came back from 4-1 down to beat Poland’s Izabella Jonska 5-4. The Turkish Cypriot had won a silver and two bronzes at the European Youth Championships last year and had earlier picked up another bronze on Saturday in the 10 ball division.

But this time she found it within herself to overcome a large deficit to win the gold medal from a seemingly losing position.

Commented a delighted Alara after the match, “It’s my last year in the Youth Championships so I’m so happy about this title. I was grinding and grinding so many years for this. Actually, I don’t know why but when I was down 4-1, I was relaxed and just potted every ball, ball-by-ball, rack-by-rack and suddenly it was 4-4 and I can’t remember the last rack! It was incredible!”

Girls Medals
Gold –  Alara Ghaffari (TC)
Silver – Izabella Jonska (POL)
Bronze –   Lena Primus (AUT)
Linnea Hjalmarstrom (SWE)

All the matches can be viewed live by visiting http://www.epbf.com/tournaments/european-championships/ and clicking on the ‘LIVE’ button. This will take you through to viewing options. In addition, selected matches will be streamed on Facebook Live on the EPBF page.

Schedule, results, live scoring and draws are available at www.epbf.com/tournaments/european-championships/