ANTWERP - ,,We don't care in Belgium if the carom has closely touched, near miss is good enough'', Jef Philipoom laughed, when he saw that another high run was made in the Belgian league. He made a little joke, of course, but he wanted to indicate how amazing all those runs are in Belgium. Frans van Kuik, Henk Habraken, Martin Spoormans, Jef Philipoom, Francis Forton, they've all had such wonderful outliers.
And now it was Christian Rudolph time with a run seventeen. The second man of Geox Herentals didn't even play a spectacular game against Rudy de Laet (50-17 in 38 innings), but highest run of the playing round itself was a highlight.
Geox won the away match against Op de Meir, the last of the ranking, 6-2. Dion Nelin defeated Wim van Cromvoirt 50-43 in 41 and Leon Smolders beat Kees Wittens 42-26 in 35. Geert Meylemans was the only one who had to congratulate his opponent Tom Persijn.
Mister 100 and Quality Zele shared the points in Lier, where Patrick Kesteloot surprisingly was the best man of the evening. The Belgian player apparently was so inspired by the glory of his opponent, Raymond Ceulemans, that he roze far above himself with an average of 2.333 and a run of nine.
Peter Ceulemans also lost, 50-49 to Peter de Backer, in a final with a lot of tension. Kurt Ceulemans secured the 4-4 for his team by beating Jean Paul de Bruijn 50-38 in 43. Again, the Dutch allrounder, who was crowned last weekend three titles, showed that his shape in three cushion is deficient with 0.883 average.
Geox BC remains the number three in the ranking behind KBC Zanzibar and BC Deurne, which teams have an advantage of three points.