Soto edges Fleisher in dramatic ACL open singles final

Sammy Soto outlasted Jayce Fleisher in a winner-take-all ACL open singles bracket final in La Crosse, and the finish matched the billing. Fleisher had already lost game one of the king seat, so the final was his last shot to stay alive for a place in the overall championship, but Soto kept control when the bracket tightened and the last frames turned into a test of nerve as much as touch.

The full-length upload ran 44 minutes and 57 seconds, a big clue that this was not just a quick highlight package but a real pressure match with room for the swing moments to breathe. That mattered because Soto entered the final carrying a staggering 11.02 PPR through 40-plus rounds, the kind of number that tells you he was not surviving on luck. He was putting boards in play, limiting waste, and forcing opponents to win points the hard way.

Fleisher still brought the kind of late-round threat that makes singles finals volatile. Once a player has already dropped out of the king seat and has to fight through a do-or-die final, there is no room for conservative mistakes. The last stretch becomes a balancing act between pressing for enough offense to catch up and avoiding the kind of overreach that hands control back to the other side. Soto handled that balance better, and that is where the edge showed up.

The match belonged to the 25/26 ACL La Crosse Open at the La Crosse Center in La Crosse, Wisconsin, held April 10-12, 2026, and the matchup now sits as one of the event’s clearest singles statements. ACL’s own framing made the stakes obvious before the first bag was tossed: electric atmosphere, bracket final tension, and a championship berth hanging on every frame.

Fleisher’s bigger singles arc only sharpens the result. ACL later highlighted him for a comeback win over Gabriel Clauson, down 10 before ripping off a 16-4 run to claim his first-ever Open Singles Title, while Around the ACL called his Open #6 run a breakout and suggested Soto was still a player ready to make the same leap. That is what made La Crosse compelling: Fleisher was turning into a real contender, and Soto showed he could meet that standard in the sharpest moments of the bracket.