Josh Heeter
In a $500-added event that drew 50 entrants to Breaktime Billiards in Winston-Salem, NC this past weekend (April 29-30), Josh Heeter, coming off his best recorded earnings year (2022), worked his way through a field of fellow tour veterans with multiple tour wins to go undefeated and claim his first 2023 PremierBilliards.com’s Q City 9-Ball title. Heeter was challenged in the hot seat by 16-year-old Niko Konkel, who more than tripled his earnings from his first recorded earnings year (2021) to make last year his best of two, was also looking to record his first 2023 cash payout at the tables (and did). Larry Hughes, the tour’s 2022 champion, came from the loss side to challenge Heeter in the finals.
Konkel and Hughes met up in one of the event’s winners’ side semifinals, as Heeter and Thomas Sansone (last year’s ‘points’ champion) squared off in the other one. With Hughes racing to 6, Konkel defeated him 7-2. Heeter joined Konkel in the hot seat match once he’d sent Sansone to the loss side 9-5. Heeter sent Konkel off to a rematch versus Hughes in the semifinals, defeating him 9-3 and kicking back to await the winner of their matchup.
The event’s final eight (all in the money) returned to Breaktime on Sunday to finish what they’d started. Once the matches that determined 7th/8th were done, Hughes and Sansone got right back to the work of winning. Hughes drew Billy Fowler, who’d defeated Cory Williams 9-3 and Steve Jenkins, double hill, to reach him. Sansone drew another junior competitor, Joe Hyatt, Jr., who’d gotten by Ulises Reyes 4-1 and Derek Leonard 4-3 (Leonard racing to 8).
Hughes downed Fowler 6-3 and in the quarterfinals, faced Sansone, who’d ended Hyatt’s weekend 7-2. A win by Hughes in those quarterfinals, 6-2, set up a semifinal rematch between Hughes and Konkel.
Fortunes were reversed. The earlier 7-2 win by Konkel in the winners’ side semifinals became a 6-2 win for Hughes in their event semifinal rematch. Hughes’ elation at advancing to the finals was short-lived, as Heeter in the hot seat, waiting, got out in front early and never let up. He concluded his undefeated run 9-2 over Hughes to claim the event title.
Tour director Herman Parker thanked Sundeep Makhani and his Breaktime Billiards staff for their hospitality, as well as title sponsor PremierBilliards.com, BarPoolTables.net, Dirty South Grind Apparel Co., Realty One Group Results, Diamond Brat, AZBilliards.com, Federal Savings Bank Mortgage Division and TKO Custom Cues. The next stop on the Q City 9-Ball Tour, scheduled for this weekend (May 6-7), will be a $500-added Scotch Doubles event, hosted by West End Billiards in Gastonia, NC.
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