Danny Harriman has won the Florida Men's Pro Tour season finale and been crowned the Florida State Championship.
Harriman had a tough draw, but came through it undefeated. Harriman started the event with a bye, and then scored back-to-back wins over Corey Deuel and then Charlie Williams to get his string of matches started. Williams was one of three tour stop winners from this season that competed in the finals. After Harriman sent CM Lee to the one-loss side, he faced another tour stop winner Mario Cruz. Cruz fell to the left side of the board 9-5.
This set up the match for the hot-seat between Steve Knoll and Harriman. Harriman cruised through that match 9-4 to take the hot-seat.
Knoll took the trip to the one-loss side and won a hard fought match over Troy Frank hill-hill. Frank missed a 9-ball in the case game to allow Knoll to earn the victory.
The win over Frank earned Knoll another shot at Harriman, but no one would stop Harriman on this day as he rolled to a 13-6 win in the finals.
Harriman earned $3500 for the win, while Knoll took home $2100 for second. Troy Frank and Mario Cruz filled out the top four positions.
Tour director John Ditoro expressed his thanks to a number of sponsors for making this season such a great success. "Rocky McElroy of Capone's Billiards came through for us when we needed a place to hold the finale. Capone's has sponsored events on every tour in the Florida area and deserves special thanks. I also want to thank David and Mitchell Cypress as well as O.B. Osceola with the Seminole Tribe of Florida, Simonis Billiard Cloth and Jerry Pechauer. They all helped a great deal this season.
Ditoro is already making plans for next season. "We will get started in mid January next season and we will have 7-8 events. They will all be $7000 to $8000 added. The Florida State Championship will be a $50,000 added event next season. We will also have an invitational event for the top 16 players on the points list where they will not have to pay an entry fee but will compete for prize money."
Ditoro already has confirmation from the Seminole Tribe that Corey Deuel, who they sponsor, will be at each stop on the tour next season.
Photo courtesy of Diana Hoppe - Pool Pics by Hoppe
Complete Payouts:
1st Danny Harriman $3500
2nd Steve Knoll $2100
3rd Troy Frank $1550
4th Mario Cruz $1150
5th/6th Rodney Morris, Bill Ferguson $850
7th/8th Charlie Williams, CM Lee $600
9th/12th Ben Conway Jr, Luis Viera, Raul Alvarez, Tony Crosby $400
13th/16th Glen Olson, Nick Varner, Julio Aquino, Rob Melrose $250
17th/24th Howard Vickery, Ray Martin, Javier Chirino, Trevor Braymore, Drew Branch, Shane Sinnott, Richie Richeson, Corey Deuel $150
