Bruce Nagle, Andrea Duvall (room owner) and Bucky Souvanthong
One day shy of exactly one year since his last Joss NE 9-Ball Tour win, Bruce Nagle came out on top of another Joss NE 9-Ball Tour stop. That wasn’t where the similarities ended though.
Last year on the weekend of March 18th - 19th, Nagle went undefeated at King Smiley’s Billiards and defeated Bucky Souvanthong in the finals. This year, on the weekend of March 17th - 18th at Hippos House of Billiards (who came through and hosted the event when King Smiley’s wasn’t able to), Nagle went through the winner’s side undefeated and beat Bucky Souvanthong in the finals.
This year’s stop saw Nagle and Souvanthong battle it out for the hot-seat, which Nagle won 9-3. It was Nagle’s second hot-seat in as many weeks as he was in the hot-seat at last weekend’s Kevin Ketz Memorial.
Souvanthong won a quick 7-2 match against Ron Casanzio on the one loss side and was looking to keep Nagle from the winner’s circle for the second straight week as Nagle lost to Joey Cicero last week.
Souvanthong’s plans were looking good after one set, as he scored a 9-6 win to force a second set. Nagle wasn’t going to get double-dipped twice in a row though and scored a 7-4 win in the second set for first place.
Sunday’s second chance tournament looked a lot like the main event with Joe Mayo taking the hot-seat with a 3-0 win over Bruce Carroll, but losing the first set of the finals (to John McConnell 3-1) before coming back and winning the second set 3-1.
The Joss NE 9-Ball Tour will now take a break until April 7th - 8th, when they are back in action at Union Station Billiards in Portland, Maine for another $1,500 added main event and $500 added second chance tournament.
Players who are interested in competing in August’s Turning Stone Classic XXX are urged to contact Mike Zuglan soon, as the event is now “well over half full”.
