A field of 34 players made their way to Diamond Eight Billiards in Latham, NY this weekend for the final 2005 stop on the Joss NE 9-Ball Tour. Early favorites in this event were Canadian Danny Hewitt and Tom D'Alfonso.
Hewitt and D'Alfonso met up on Saturday with Hewitt coming out on top. Hewitt continued his winning ways and finally met up with tour director Mike Zuglan for the hot-seat on Sunday. Hewitt came out with 5 straight break and runs to start the match and held off Zuglan from there en-route to a 9-5 win.
Zuglan went to the left side of the board and found D'Alfonso waiting. D'Alfonso had been making his way through the one loss side looking for a rematch with Hewitt. This match looked to be over when Zuglan got to the hill at 8-5, but D'Alfonso won the next four games for the 9-8 victory.
The true double elimination finals started with D'Alfonso cruising to a 9-4 win in the first set. The second set was much closer with multiple lead changes and neither player able to take any sort of decent lead. In the end, it was D'Alfonso scoring a hard fought 9-8 win to earn first place.
D'Alfonso took home $1300 in prize money, while Hewitt pocketed $900 for second. Zuglan and Dave Fernandez filled out the top four spots.
The Joss NE 9-Ball Tour will be at Comet Billiards in Parsippany, NJ on January 21st-22nd for their next event. Tour director Mike Zuglan is taking sign-ups for the upcoming Turning Stone Classic VI 9-Ball Open on February 16th - 19th at Turning Stone Casino in Verona, NY. Mike can be contacted at 518-356-7163 for players who want to sign up now.
Complete Results:
1st Tom D'Alfonso $1300
2nd Danny Hewitt $900
3rd Mike Zuglan $750
4th Dave Fernandez $570
5th/6th Mike Houppert, John Shattell $400
7th/8th Charlie Fowler, Bruce Carroll $200
