Shane McMinn, Michael Pickering and Joey Gray
Two years ago, in April of 2019, when we last reported on a match in which Shane McMinn and Joey Gray met each other in an event final, we were lamenting the fact that we had no way of knowing just how many times they had done that. Neither do they. Back then, we’d tracked down one event from 2014 in which Gray “went undefeated, downing McMinn in the hot seat and finals,” and “found a few instances in which McMinn had bested Gray in the finals.” Whatever their total count and whoever’s ahead of who in total wins, we know for certain that it’s an often-renewed rivalry that goes back at least 15 years. McMinn began showing up in our database in 1999. Joey Gray, in 2006.
In that last meetup (that we know of) in 2019, Gray came from the loss side and double dipped McMinn in the finals to win a stop on the Midwest 9-Ball Tour. This past weekend, Sept. 18-19, McMinn returned the favor, coming from the loss side to double dip Gray in stop #9 on the Cuetec DFW 9-Ball Tour. The $1,500-added event drew 60 entrants to Jeffro’s Billiards in Canton, TX.
McMinn started off by chalking up three wins against Garrett Hogue, Jennifer Hooten and TJ Davis by an aggregate score of 30-7, before running into Joey Gray in one of the winners’ side quarterfinals. Gray, who’d tallied an aggregate score of 27-11 versus Shawn Findley, Tony Top and Corey Flud, sent McMinn to the loss side 9-5 and drew Crispian Ng in one of the winners’ side semifinals. Michael Pickering, in the meantime, who’d gotten by Jamie Blevins, Jonathan Davis, Robert Webb and Clint Freeeman (28-10) picked up the Cuetec DFW 9-Ball Tour’s top player in the Tour standings, Daniel Herring, in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Gray advanced to the hot seat match with a 9-4 win over Ng, as Pickering got by Herring 7-3. Gray claimed the hot seat 9-5 over Pickering and waited on the return of a very familiar face.
On the loss side, it was Herring who drew Shane McMinn, in the middle of his five-match, loss-side winning streak that would take him all the way to the finals. Following his defeat at the hands of Gray, McMinn met up with and eliminated Chip Compton 10-4, a player who could readily be added to the McMinn/Gray rivalry, forming a Midwest rivalry triumvirate that’ve been battling each other all over the country for years. McMinn moved on to defeat Harold “Woody” Paine 10-4 and face Herring. Crispian Ng picked up Clint Freeman, who’d been sent over in a winners’ side quarterfinal by Pickering and defeated TJ Davis 9-5 and Alberto Nieto Garcia 9-6.
Freeman downed Ng 9-6 and in the quarterfinals, faced McMinn, who’d eliminated Herring 10-6. McMinn defeated Freeman 10-7 and then, in the semifinals, Pickering 10-5.
McMinn took the opening set of the true double elimination final 10-4. He went one better in the second set, claiming the event title 10-3.
Tour representatives thanked the ownership and staff at Jeffro’s Billiards, as well as title sponsor Cuetec, Fort Worth Billiards Store, JB Cases, Internet Marketing Solutions, Granite Guyz and Dallas 8-Ball. The next stop on the Cuetec DFW 9-Ball Tour, scheduled for October 23-24, will be hosted by Snookered in Frisco, TX.
