Woodward comes from the loss side, downs Van Boening to win Mini Derb One Pocket
Mosconi Cup teammates Sky Woodward and Shane Van Boening met twice in the One Pocket division of the 2025 Mini Derb, which began on Sunday, Jan. 12 and finished up on Tuesday, Jan. 14. It didn’t go so well for Woodward in the hot seat battle, but he returned from a semifinal victory to defeat […]
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Skyler Woodward
Mosconi Cup teammates Sky Woodward and Shane Van Boening met twice in the One Pocket division of the 2025 Mini Derb, which began on Sunday, Jan. 12 and finished up on Tuesday, Jan. 14. It didn’t go so well for Woodward in the hot seat battle, but he returned from a semifinal victory to defeat Van Boening in the final, claiming title to the $6,000-added event that drew 16 entrants to Railyard Billiards in Louisville, KY.
There were early thoughts that the finalists in the Mini Derb’s 9-Ball division, Mickey Krause and Tony Chohan, might battle through the field and meet in a One Pocket rematch. They did, but they met on the loss side, eliminating any ‘rematch in the final’ ideas. They both began their quest for a second weekend title by engaging in a shutout. In the opening round, Chohan ended up on the losing side of his match, shut out by Shane Wolford, whom he’d defeated to claim the 9-ball hot seat. Krause shut out his first opponent, Adrian Puckett, in a ‘788’ versus ‘439’ FargoRate matchup, which calculated that Puckett had a .1% chance of winning. Krause advanced and followed Chohan over, when Lukas Fracasso-Verner defeated him 4-2 in the next round.
With the two 9-ball finalists tucked away, at work on the loss side, Woodward and Van Boening headed out separate roads to the hot seat. Woodward opened with a 4-1 victory over another of his Mosconi Cup teammates, Billy Thorpe, and followed that with a 4-2 win over ‘young gun’ (14) Payne McBride. Woodward drew Louis DeMarco in one of the winners’ side semifinals.
Shane Van Boening appeared to be a ‘man with a mission’ at this outing. He didn’t give up a single rack until he played in the finals against Woodward. Van Boening defeated, in order, Leo Kincannon and Paul Age, to pick up Lukas Fracasso-Verner in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Van Boening continued his ‘unscored upon’ streak by shutting out Fracasso-Verner, as Woodward chalked up his first shutout, sending Demarco to the loss side. Van Boening shut Woodward out to claim the hot seat.
On the loss side, the Chohan/Krause matchup took place in the second round. In his first loss-side round, Chohan shut out Shawn Miller and picked up Krause, playing in his first loss-side round. Not surprisingly, their match, won by Krause, went double hill, and became the first of three straight double-hill matches for him. He followed by eliminating Billy Thorpe and, coming over from the winners’ side semifinal, Louis Demarco, which put Krause into the quarterfinal.
Fracasso-Verner picked up Leo Kincannon, who’d followed his opening-round loss to Van Boening with double-hill wins over two teenagers in a row, Hayden Ernst and Payne McBride. Kincannon then gave up another one to another teenager, Kash Keaton, and advanced to meet Fracasso-Verner.
Krause and Demarco battled to double hill before Krause prevailed, advancing to the quarterfinal. Fracasso-Verner shut Kincannon out to join him. Krause gave up a single rack to Fracasso-Verner and then locked up in his fourth, double-hill, loss-side battle in the semifinals versus Woodward. Woodward ‘punched his ticket’ to the final with the win.
Given Van Boening’s shutout victory in the hot seat match, it was hard to know on the face of it what the odds (for and against) victory in the final was going to be. FargoRate calculations, which, by the way, don’t differentiate the odds for different games (9-ball, 10-ball, One Pocket), gave Woodward (811) only a 37% chance of defeating Van Boening (842) in the extended-race to 5. Woodward beat the odds, defeated Van Boening 5-2 and claimed the Mini Derb’s One Pocket title.
