 Nick Sheppard, Jay Nelson and Mike Cantrell |
On September 15th, the Viking Cue 9-Ball Tour held a one-day amateur $500 added event at TJ's Billiards in Huntington, West Virginia. The field of twenty-five players included the player auction pick of the litter, Mike Cantrell, defending champion Duck Moore, Justin Lazzaro, and Joey Arbuckle.
Cantrell did not disappoint onlookers as he eventually ran through the brackets undefeated. One of the players that attempted to stop him toward the end of the day was Nick Sheppard in the hot seat round. Sheppard was on the loosing end of that match-up with a quick 7-2 race and was then sent to the one-loss side to await another opponent.
The semi-finals provided Justin Lazzaro a chance to redeem himself from a prior first round loss to Nick Sheppard, but even after fighting his way through numerous players on the one-loss side (including defending champ Duck Moore), he was unable to take down Sheppard. The end result was a score of 5-3 and a third place finish for Lazzaro.
After finally dispensing Lazzaro, Sheppard ended his day in yet another repeat match. The finals pitted Cantrell and Sheppard against each other for the second time, but Cantrell was unstoppable and made Sheppard resign to second place as he ended the set with a final score of 7-3 for the overall tournament win.
Special thanks to TJ's Billiards and to Tournament Director Shawn Putnam for a great event.
