This year's Mosconi Cup was going to be one for the record books. Up until this year, Team USA had been in kind of a winning drought. The last time they won the cup was 2009. In 2009 the team line ups were as follows; Team USA: Johnny Archer, Corey Duel, Oscar Dominguez, Shane Van Boening, and Dennis Hatch with captain Nick Varner playing against Team Europe: Ralf Souquet, Niels Feijen, Darren Appleton, Mika Immonen, and Thorsten Hohmann with captain Alex Lely. On day one in 2009 USA jumped out to a commanding lead winning the first 4 matches but losing the last putting them up 4 to 1. On the second day in 2009 they ended up winning 3 our of the 4 matches that were played that day putting them up overall 7 to 2. On the third day in 2009 Team Europe put together a little bit of a comeback and took 3 out of the 5 matches that day putting them up 9 to 5. Then on the fourth and final day in 2009 it went 2 to 2 with Shane Van Boening clinching the final point in a singles match against Ralf Souqut giving Team USA their 11th overall point to Team Europe's 7 points. So over the next 8 years Team Europe was able to come away with victories with varying degrees of success from jumping out to a commanding lead in the beginning or mounting great comebacks at the end.


The team line ups for the 2018 Mosconi Cup had on Team USA: Skyler Woodward, Shane Van Boening, Billy Thorpe, Tyler Styer, and Corey Duel with captain Johan Ruijsink playing against Team Europe: Eklent Kaci, Alexander Kazakis, Niels Feijen, Albin Ouschan, and Jayson Shaw with captain Marcus Chamat. The start of the 2018 Mosconi Cup had Team Europe jumping out to overall 2 to 0 lead which made a lot of people wonder if Team Europe was just going to continue with their dominance. It wasn't until the third match with a rookie to the Mosconi Cup, Tyler Styer got up to play against Niels Feijen a veteran where Team USA got their first overall point of the tournament. So instead of Team Europe jumping out to a 3 to 0 lead after three matches the overall score was just Team Europe 2 to Team USA 1. The next match was a doubles match of Kaci and Kazakis versus Van Boening and Duel. Team USA was able to pull out a 5 game to 1 game victory making the overall score tied. The 5th and final match of the day had two of the greatest players in the game going head to head, Jayson Shaw vs Shane Van Boening. Shane was shooting great and shut out Shaw with a match score of 5 to 0. After day one the overall score had Team USA with a slight lead having 3 overall points to Team Europe's two.
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