Jon Rawlins, Gavin Ray Mathew and Chad Hart
Wins nine on the loss side and two final sets on the Cuetec DFW 9-Ball Tour
If you’ve been following pool over the past few years, you’ve likely become accustomed to the presence and skills of a whole new generation of players, yet to become teenagers, who are going ‘toe to toe’ against adults, all the way up to the professional level. And not just poking balls around a table as the older, more experienced adults send them quickly to the loss side, where other adults eliminate them. We’re talking youngsters barely out of grammar school, who are vying for event titles.
Gavin Ray Mathew will become 11 years old on Wednesday (Oct. 23) and this past weekend (Oct. 19-20), he celebrated early by winning his first regional tour title. The hard way. He lost his opening match and then won nine in a row to earn a spot in a double-elimination final. He won both sets of that final. Mathew became one of the eight different competitors who’ve won the (thus far) 10 stops on the 2024 Cuetec DFW 9-Ball Tour. He was runner-up twice this year to one of the only two competitors to have won two stops on the 2024 tour, Gus Briseno (Shane McMinn is the other one). Briseno, who sits atop the tour’s ranking list and mentors Mathews, defeated him in May and August this year, both times coming from the loss side to defeat him in a two-set final.
“Gavin’s got natural, instinctive ability,” said tour representative Monica Anderson. “He’s just got that ‘eye’ (for the game).”
“Mathew plays in a local BCA league,” Anderson added, “and in his 71-player, 8-ball division, he just became the last session’s #1 player.”
So, these recent accomplishments of Mathew at the tables are no fluke, a series of lucky rolls or just older folks ‘cutting him some slack.’ He’s the ‘real deal,’ as they say. A confident younger adult with a current FargoRate of 571 that we will no doubt be hearing a lot more about in the future. In the recent past of this weekend, the ‘soon-to-be’ birthday boy joined 46 competitors in the $1,000-added 10th stop on the Cuetec DFW 9-Ball Tour, hosted by VFW Post 2772 in Sherman, TX.
“It’s one of my favorite places to play,” Mathew wrote in a Facebook post, “and I couldn’t be happier. Thanks, as always, to my sponsors (Predator Cues, OnTheSpot) and everyone for the support.”
Mathew took his opening-round 6-4 loss to Tim Grunst in stride. Didn’t get mad, frustrated or bent out of shape. He got to work. And would return the ‘favor’ on the loss side.
Meanwhile, Jon Rawlins and Chad Hart began their trek to the hot seat match. Awarded an opening round bye, Rawlins, racing to 8, got by Sammy Downs (5), Eli Bomsburger (double hill), and Gene Joslin (1) to draw Robbie Smith in one of the winners’ side semifinals. Chad Hart, racing to 7, opened with a shutout over his wife, Brandi, a ‘move’ generally not calculated to enhance domestic tranquility, although based on how ‘hubby’ finished in the tournament, he would presumably be in a position to balance that out. Chad advanced to down David Bomsburger (2) and then, sent Tim Grunst to the loss side (4) for an eventual rematch against Mathew. Hart defeated Lance Sullivan 7-5 to draw Jessie Wilcoxson 7-4 in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Rawlins downed Smith 8-4, as Hart sent Wilcoxson west 7-4. Rawlins claimed the hot seat over Hart 8-3, as his eventual opponent in the finals, Mathew, was competing in the quarterfinals.
On the loss side, it was Wilcoxson who had the misfortune of drawing Mathew, who was six matches into his loss-side streak. He arrived to compete in his seventh loss-side match with a loss-side aggregate score of 36-14, with five of those racks-allowed in his opening victory over Sammy Downs. He followed that by eliminating Mrs. Hart 6-1, Joe Pelayo and Curtis Cardwell, both 6-3, Mitch Owen 6-1 and in his ‘returning the favor’ rematch against Grunst, eliminated him 6-1. Smith drew Keith Diaz, who’d lost a winners’ side quarterfinal to Wilcoxson 7-2 and defeated JR Rosenbaugh 6-4 and Brandon Sisemore 6-3 to reach him.
Diaz and Wilcoxson were denied the opportunity for a rematch as Smith eliminated Diaz 7-2 and Mathew stopped Wilcoxson 6-5 (Wilcoxson racing to 7). Mathew chalked up loss-side win #8 with a 6-4 victory over Smith in the quarterfinals.
According to the digitalpool bracket, Rawlins claimed the hot seat at around 2:20 p.m. on Sunday and conceivably could have watched the tail end of the quarterfinal, which finished at around 3:10. He most certainly could have watched the semifinal, although if the habits of hot seat occupants can be generalized, he’d more likely to have been shooting on his own at a distant table. What he would have seen in the semifinal match between Gavin Ray Mathew and Chad Hart was a less than average performance from the youngster, who had completed eight, loss-side matches, giving up, on average, 2.1 racks per match.
In that eight-match run, only one of Mathew’s opponents had been awarded ‘beads on the wire’ against him; the second one against Brandi Hart, who was awarded two of them in a race to 6. He played only two, straight-up races to 6. He was the one who was awarded two ‘beads on the wire’ in one race to 8 against Curtis Cardwell, and began the other four with a single ‘bead on the wire’ in races to 7, including the final three. He won the last of those four, defeating Chad Hart 6-5 in the semifinals, punching his ticket into the double-elimination final against Rawlins.
His match handicap worked for him in both sets of the final. He started with two ‘beads on the wire’ in a race to 8 against Rawlins and in the opening set, defeated him 6-4. Things tightened up in the second set, but not by much. Rawlins recorded one more rack than he had in the opening set, as Mathew went on to claim his first major title 6-5.
Mathew has competed in seven of the 10 stops on the tour this year and his win moved him into third place in the tour’s rankings, behind Briseno, who did not compete and Mark Johnson, who did, finishing in the tie 17th place. From a start in the USA Pool League, two years ago, at the ripe old age of 9, when he was assigned a standard, starting FargoRate of 250, Mathew now sports his current FargoRate of 571 and has recorded his first regional tour win, an accomplishment that more than just a handful of much older adults are eager to achieve. Credit for his growth in the sport and his recent victory rests firmly on his own shoulders, although as is typical of young competitors, supportive parents are a key element to his success.
“His father, Tony,” noted Monica Anderson, “says Gavin Ray gets his ‘basic (pool) abilities’ from his Mom, Varsha.”
Tour representatives thanked the ownership and staff at VFW Post 2772, along with title sponsor Cuetec, Fort Worth Billiards Superstore, Rasson Billiards and DFW Pool TV.
The Cuetec DFW 9-Ball Tour’s season finale is scheduled for the weekend of November 16-17. The $5,000-added event, restricted to competitors who have competed in at least five events of the 2024 season (the finale not included), will be hosted by Rusty’s in Arlington, TX.
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