Nick Conner
In the third stop on the Omega Billiards Tour in May, Crispian Ng sat in the hot seat, watching Tony Sulsar make a strong, loss-side bid to meet him in the finals. Ng turned him away in those finals to complete an undefeated run through the field. On the tour's fourth stop, on the weekend of June 14-15, it was Nick Conner, looking for his first win on the tour, who was sitting in the hot seat watching Ng make the strong, loss-side bid to hook up in the finals. Like Sulsar, a month earlier, Ng's bid to capture the event title was stopped by the man in the hot seat. The $1,500-added event drew 61 entrants to Rusty's Billiards in Fort Worth, TX.
Conner and Ng played twice, the first time in a winners' side semifinal, as Marc Brown squared off against Randy Larsen. Conner took the first of two against Ng 7-4, and in the hot seat match, faced Brown, who'd sent Larsen to the loss side 7-3. Conner took the hot seat with a 7-5 win over Brown and waited on Ng's return.
Over on the loss side, Larsen picked up Ricky Jarmillo, who'd given up only a single rack to Mitch Owen, and then barely survived a double hill battle against Daniel Herring. Ng drew David Josephson, who'd defeated Tony Sulsar 6-5 and Coleman Derryberry 6-4. Ng and Jarmillo advanced to the quarterfinals; Ng, 6-6 over Josephson, and Jarmillo 7-5 over Larsen.
Ng prevailed, double hill, in the quarterfinals over Jarmillo, and then earned his second shot at Conner, with a 7-4 win over Marc Brown in the semifinals. Conner stopped the loss-side run with a 7-3 victory over Ng in the finals to capture his first Omega Tour title.
