Mike Davis, Jr.
If state pool championships are the measurement device, then Mike Davis is the best pool player in North Carolina. He owns back-to-back titles in the state’s 9-Ball Championships and on the weekend of November 4-5, he chalked up his third straight NC State 8-Ball title.
Say what you will about competing in a small field, Davis locked up his third 8-Ball title by defeating one of the game’s better known veterans, Mark Tademy, cited by The Hyper Texts (http://www.thehypertexts.com) as one of a list of “unknown monster players who could play with anyone on a given day.” A little over 10 years ago (2006), Davis and Tademy were among a world-wide cast of the best in the International Pool Tour’s (IPT) North American Open Championship in Las Vegas. Finishing in the tie for 61st, and pocketing $5K, Tademy was in tied company with (among others) Keith McCready, Mike Sigel, George “Ginky” Sansouci, Shannon Daulton, Allison Fisher, Loree Jon Hasson, Jeremy Jones, Allen Hopkins and Gerda Hofstatter. Davis, who finished 121st, and pocketed $2K, was in tied company with (among others) Grady Mathews, Jose Parica, Mike Massey, Tommy Kennedy, Warren Kiamco, Ewa Mataya Laurance, Tony Robles, Shane Van Boening, Karen Corr, and Billy Incardona.
And so, the hot seat and finals of the 2017 NC State 8-Ball Championships, held under the auspices of the Viking Cues’ Q City 9-Ball Tour, featured two of the sport’s more prominent competitors; one (Tademy), a little more old-school than the other (Davis). The $300-added event drew 23 entrants to Brown’s Billiards in Raleigh, NC. It should be noted that the weekend of November 4-5 played host to at least two other major 8-Ball Tournaments, which are about as rare as teenagers who don’t play video games – NYC’s BCA-sanctioned 8-Ball Championships, which drew 241 entrants (with some duplication over six separate events) and Maryland State’s 8-Ball Championships, which drew a full field of 128 entrants. North Carolina appeared to have drawn the ‘short straw’ on available 8-ball competitors.
The tournament did, however, draw two marquee players into its final two matches. Davis and Tademy met first in the hot seat match, once Davis had sent Jim Lewis to the loss side 7-3 in one winners’ side semifinal and Tademy had dispatched former NC State 9-Ball Champion Jeff Abernathy 7-4 in the other one. Davis claimed the hot seat 7-3 over Tademy and waited for round two.
On the loss side, Abernathy picked up Eddie Little, who’d gotten by Kenny Daughtrey 7-3 and Steve Page 7-4. Lewis drew Joshua Padron (winner of the 2016 Viking Cues’ Q City 9-Ball Tour Championships this past January), who’d defeated Brown’s Billiards’ owner Dave Huffman 7-2 and Tyler Chappell 7-5.
Little and Padron eliminated winners’ side semifinalists Abernathy and Lewis, respectively; Little, 7-4 over Abernathy and Padron, 7-3 over Lewis. Little dropped Padron 7-5 in the quarterfinals that followed, before having his two-match, loss-side run ended by Tademy 7-3 in the semifinals.
The two veterans, Davis and Tademy, fought back and forth in the early going of the finals to a 5-5 tie. Davis, though, took command at that point and chalked up the next four in a row to win it and claim his third straight NC State 8-Ball title.
Tour directors Herman and Angela Parker thanked Brown’s Billiards’ owner Dave Huffman and his staff for their hospitality, as well as title sponsor Viking Cues, Delta 13 Racks, AZBilliards and Professor Q Ball. The next stop on the Viking Cues’ Q City 9-Ball Tour, scheduled for November 11-12, will be a $1,000-added event, hosted by Mr. Cues II in Atlanta, GA.
