BJ Ussery narrowly avoided another double dip loss at the Viking Cue 9-Ball Tour stop at Numans Billiards in Johnson City, TN this weekend.
The match for the hot-seat was dominated by Ussery 9-3 over Jason Klatt. Klatt ended up playing Ussery and Lady Luck in this match as he was unable to get any roll and was constantly pushing out after breaks or kicking at balls when Ussery might miss a ball.
While that match was going on, Viking Tour favorite Shawn Putnam was going through the same sort of battle with Lady Luck as he lost to Chris Bartrum 9-3. Putnam was also unable to get anything going and was repeatedly faced with tough shots after empty breaks or misses by Bartrum.
On the one-loss side, Klatt was handed another 9-3 loss. This time the loss came at the hands of Bartrum, who had dropped a match to Mike Davis earlier on Sunday but had been wrecking havok on the one-loss side ever since then.
The finals were between Ussery and Bartrum and Bartrum won the first set 9-5 to force a second set. The last time Ussery had taken a Viking Tour hot-seat was last month when he was double dipped by Bruce Berrong in the finals, and it looked like it might happen again when Bartrum took control of the second set and got to the hill at 8-6. Ussery dug down though, and took the last three games for the 9-8 win.
Ussery collected $2000, while Bartrum settled for $1200 in prize money. Klatt and Putnam filled out the top four places.
The Viking Cue 9-Ball Tour will be at The Rack in Livonia, MI next weekend and will be holding their $25,000 added National Championship at Palace Billiards in Villa Park, IL on March 2-6.
Complete Results:
1st BJ Ussery $2000
2nd Chris Bartrum $1200
3rd Jason Klatt $800
4th Shawn Putnam $500
5th/6th Mike Davis, Haskell Brown $250
7th/8th Harold Ewing, Erik Hjorleifson $100
9th/12th Anthony Morgan, Doug Shulz, Janet Atwell, Brian Capps $70
Ricky Bingham, Gene Abshir, Max Schlothauer, Johnny Carson $50
