Donnie Proctor
9-year-old Donnie Proctor wins very short-field juniors event and ‘gifts’ his Mom with a cue
It’s generally known as serendipity, “the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.” Young Donnie Proctor (9) came to Big Tyme Billiards in Spring, TX this past weekend (April 20-21) to compete in a juniors tournament, held under the auspices of the DL Billiards Tour. What he most likely did not expect (in other words, by chance) was that he would defeat every other competitor in the event, which drew four entrants. He would also likely not have expected that he would play a total of 16 games over three matches and give up just a single rack. He might have showed up hoping he might do well, but it’s unlikely that he’d have walked in with an “I’m going to win this” chip on his shoulder. As noted, though, he went undefeated and did win.
But the serendipity was not over. His Mom (Trisha Proctor) was present and it would flow in her direction.
“Trisha Proctor was telling me that she really wanted that purple McDermott Cue (that was being raffled),” wrote Tour director D’Andrea Leassear in her post-event e-mail to us. “I told her to try winning it with a raffle ticket.”
As it turned out, the recent winner of the juniors event, her son Donnie Proctor bought his mom a raffle ticket with his 1st place winnings.
“Then,” wrote Leassear, “I asked his brother, Preston, to pull the winning ticket.”
“He pulled his Mom’s ticket!!” she added. “How amazing is that!?”
Serendipitously amazing.
Quick recap of the juniors event which started the whole serendipitous ball rolling. “They played their hearts out,” noted Leassear. Donnie Proctor gave up his single rack in his opening match against Mike “Ozzy” Osborn, which put him immediately into the hot seat match. David Deanda joined him, after he’d defeated Ian Castellanos 5-1. Proctor shut Deanda out to claim the seat.
It was on the loss side of this bracket that the action really started to heat up. There were only two matches, but both of them went double hill (4-3). Castellanos downing Osborn in the quarterfinal and Deanda in the semifinal for a shot at Proctor. Proctor shut Castellanos out in the finals to claim the title, win the cash and gift his Mom with a raffle ticket that won her a McDermott Cue, drawn from its ‘jar’ by her other son, Preston.
Billy Sharp
The Assassins stop a ‘final’ attack from Deadly Alliance to win 12-team Scotch Doubles
There should have been an award for Name Creativity. For the most part, Scotch Doubles pool tournaments are characterized by teams that identify themselves only by player names (Smith/Jones or Davis/Clark, for example). Only one of the 12 teams that competed in DL Billiards’ Scotch Doubles event over the weekend chose to do that. After an opening-round bye, Chuck Adams and Will Felder lost their first two matches; the first, to the eventual winners, The Assassins and the second, to runners-up, Deadly Alliance. It’s possible that Adams and Felder will be considering a team name to compete in their next Scotch Doubles Tournament.
Our vote for Best Name Award would go to the Phenollical Balls team of Sonny Bosshamer and Allen Potter. For those unaware (and we can only guess at how many times Bosshamer and Potter were asked about it), phenolic resin is the ‘gold standard’ material for high-quality billiards balls due to its durability, consistency, resilience and low coefficient of friction.” You can find out why by reading – https://hardtimesbilliards.com/what-are-billiard-balls-made-of/.
Second prize might go to the winner of the juniors event (Donnie Proctor) and his Dad (Donald) for their ‘hope springs eternal’ team name of The Mosconians.
The Assassins (Billy Sharp/Brent Foster) won five straight to claim the DL Billiards Scotch Doubles title. They were challenged in the finals by the Deadly Alliance team of James and David Costello, which had lost its opening match and won six on the loss side to punch their ticket for the finals.
The Assassins met their toughest competitors (score comparisons, which do not always translate into ‘toughest’) in the opening round, when the VENETURK team of Pedro Oviol and Eylul Kibaroglu chalked up six racks against them in a race to 9. The Assassins advanced to meet and defeat the Adams/Welder team 9-3 and in a winners’ side semifinal, Old and Crippled (Nick Schipon/Tommy Tokoph) 9-6.
From the other end of the bracket, the R & R team of Ricky Barker & Rudy Sanchez team started out with a double-hill match versus the Deadly Alliance, winning it to send Deadly Alliance on the six-match, loss-side winning streak. R & R advanced to defeat the Down to Clown team of Verda Jones and Lonny White 8-2 and in the other winners’ side semifinal, The Screwston (we didn’t ask) team of Mario Alaniz and Isiah Casarez 9-7. The Assassins claimed the hot seat over R & R 9-1.
On the loss side, Deadly Alliance eliminated, in order, IDK 7-5, the Adams/Felder team 6-5 (Adams/Felder racing to 7), Phenollical Balls 5-1 and the Screwston 7-2 to face Old and Crippled in the quarterfinals. Deadly Alliance won that in a double-hill fight and downed R & R for their shot at The Assassins. The Assassins completed their undefeated run with a 9-2 win in the finals.
Tour director D’Andrea Leassear thanked the ownership and staff at Big Tyme Billiards for their hospitality, as well as McDermott Cues Official Fan Page (“for the beautiful cues”), Jason Brodman and Dennis Leassear. The next stop (#5) on the DL Billiards Tour, scheduled for the weekend of May 11-12, will be a split-bracket, 8-ball event, hosted by Bogie’s West Billiards in Houston, TX.
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