Ed Acosta
Ed Acosta, with only a single cash payout recorded on his AZBilliards’ profile (and that, eight years ago), navigated his way through a field of 64 competitors, on-hand for a $2,000-added, ‘600 and under’ Fargo-rate, 8-ball event, hosted by Paradise Billiards in Lantana, FL and sponsored by Dr. Michael Fedak this past weekend (March 9-10). With his 13th place finish in the Amateur division of the 6th Annual George “Ginky” Sansouci Memorial Tournament in 2016 as his only (recorded) ‘claim to fame,’ so to speak, Acosta came back from a hot-seat match loss to Dylan Bryant to meet and greet him a second and third time, double-dipping him in the true double-elimination final.
Between them, Acosta and Bryant dealt with five double-hill matches on their way to their first ‘date’ in the hot seat match. Acosta’s five-match trip started out with two victories, against Kevin Ballash 6-1 and Emily Boxson 6-2, but got a little trickier as he dealt with three straight double-hill bouts against Guy Jones, Vinny Ceraulo and in a winners’ side semifinal, Tim Barker. Bryant won three in a row at the outset, over Kathryn Carroll (1), Christian Lopez-Rivas (3) and shut out Eyal Harel before he was forced to survive two straight, double-hill battles; a winners’ side quarterfinal against Christian Vanegas and the other winners’ side semifinal versus Ramon Alfonso. Bryant, with a single ‘bead on the wire’ in a hot seat match race to 5, didn’t really need it. He claimed the hot seat 4-2 over Acosta and waited on his return.
Henry Kantorski, who’d lost his opening match and had to battle to double hill before winning his first loss-side match, won his next five by an aggregate score of 25-4. He then shut out Terry White to make the aggregate 30-4 ahead of drawing Tim Barker coming over from the winners’ side semifinal. Vinnie Ceraulo followed his winners’ side quarterfinal loss to Acosta by downing Joe Senich 5-3 and Chris Crum 5-1 to pick up Ramon Alfonso.
Barker and Alfonso ran right into their second straight loss. Kantorksi chalked up loss-side win #8, 5-2 over Barker and though Alfonso battled to double hill, it was Ceraulo who advanced 6-3 (Alfonso racing to 4) to meet Kantorksi in the quarterfinals. Ceraulo locked up in another double-hill match in those quarterfinals and stopped Kantorski’s long, loss-side run.
Acosta stopped Ceraulo’s two-match, loss-side run 5-3 in the semifinals and headed into his second and what would prove to be his third match against Bryant, waiting for him in the hot seat. They battled to double hill in the opening set before Acosta dropped the 8-ball in the 8th game and forced the second set. The dynamics were a little different. In the opening set (as in the hot seat match) Bryant started out with a single ‘bead on the wire’ in a race to 5. In the second set, it was a straight-up race to 5 and Acosta defeated Bryant 5-2 to claim the title.
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