Travis Guerra
Travis Guerra's been poking at the winners' circle on the Viking Cues' Q City 9-Ball Tour all year long. He was runner-up at a stop in January (to Greg Taylor), and a couple of weeks later, finished fifth in the 2016 Tour Championships. He made it as far as the semifinals, twice; once in April and once in May. He broke through to chalk up his first event victory of the year at a stop on July 1-2, which drew 30 entrants to Randolph's Billiards in Hickory, NC. It was his first win on the tour since he'd gone undefeated in an 8-ball event, two years ago. This time around, though he made it to the hot seat, Brian Capps gave him a run for his money in the double elimination finals, taking the first set.
They'd missed battling for the hot seat by a match. Guerra advanced to that hot seat match with a 6-4 win over Matt Lucas in one winners' side semifinal. Justin Clark, in the meantime, racing to 6, downed Capps (racing to 10) 6-1 in the other winners' side semifinal. In a straight up race to 6, Guerra claimed the hot seat over Clark and waited on the return of Capps.
On the loss side, Capps picked up Trey Frank, who'd just eliminated Tim Monk and Jeff Young, both 7-2. Lucas drew Clint Clark (no relation to Justin), who, racing to 10, had shut out Joe Sims, and given up only a single rack to Steve Reece.
With Clark and Capps both racing to 10, they both advanced to the quarterfinals; Clark 10-4 over Lucas, and Capps 10-3 over Frank. In what was arguably the best match of the weekend (two top-tier players racing to 10) Capps and Clint Clark battled back and forth to double hill, before Capps prevailed to take on his second Clark in a row (Justin) in the semifinals.
Justin put up a bit of fight in those semifinals and came within a game of forcing a deciding game against Capps, but Capps closed it out at 10-4, for a shot at Guerra in the hot seat. With a dose of momentum on his side, Capps gave up only a single rack to Guerra in the opening set of the true double elimination final. Fortunes reversed in the second set, as they often do when it's nearing 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning after two days of pool shooting, and Guerra got out in front in the second set and stayed there, winning it 6-3 to claim the event title.
Tour director Herman Parker thanked the ownership and staff at Randolph Billiards, 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 July 8-9, will be hosted by Mickey Milligan's in New Bern, NC.
