Skyler Hess and Bethany Tate
This past weekend (March 31-April 2), Skylar Hess and Landon Hollingsworth, two junior competitors who’ve been a part of the Junior International Championship (JIC) series of events since its inception in 2021 took four of the five event titles at stake in the third stop of the JIC’s 2023 season. Hess won both the 18U and 13U Girls titles (7 entrants each), while Hollingsworth prevailed in the 18U Boys (22) and ProAm (27) events. Hayden Ernst won the 13U Boys title (13). The five divisions’ 76 entrants (with crossovers) were hosted by Breaktime Billiards in Winston-Salem, NC.
Over the course of the JIC’s three years, the events have spotlighted a number of ongoing rivalries among the series’ various divisions. Some of those rivalries have had and continue to experience certain peaks and valleys.
Skylar Hess and Sofia Mast, for example, have been challenging each other in both girls’ divisions and to a certain extent in the mixed-gender/age ProAm division, almost from the start. While Mast took an early lead in their three-year series of matchups (in both mid-event and event finals), Hess has been catching up steadily. There’s been an evident family rivalry going on between two Tate sisters, the older Bethany and the younger Noelle, who’ve competed against each other in some significant spots in both female divisions. This past weekend, they met in the opening round of the 18U Girls event, with Bethany advancing, eventually to the finals against Hess. Bethany and Mast met in the semifinals. Noelle defeated Hess in the hot seat match of the 13U Girls event, but Hess came back to defeat her in the finals.
Franki Spain, Skylar Hess and Noelle Tate
So, while we’re on the subject, ladies first. Hess’ four-match run to the 18U Girls winners’ circle ran through Precilia Kinsley (2) before continuing her rivalry with Mast by defeating her 7-4 in a winners’ side semifinal. Bethany Tate, in the meantime, after defeating her sister, Noelle 7-1, downed Courtney Hairfield 7-5 in their winners’ side semifinal. Hess claimed the hot seat 7-3. On the loss side, in which Mast defeated Noelle Tate 7-1 and survived a double-hill battle versus Kinsley, she was eliminated by Bethany Tate 7-5 in the semifinals. Hess then defeated Bethany a second time, 9-6, to claim the 18U Girls title.
It took Hess four matches to secure the 13U Girls title, but half of them went double hill. She’d been awarded an opening round bye before Gia Fiore challenged her, double hill, in one of the winners’ side semifinals. Noelle Tate, in the meantime, got by Franki Spain 7-4 and by the same score, defeated Molly O’Reilly in the other winners’ side semifinal to join Hess in the hot seat match. Noelle handed Hess her first, and as it turned out, only loss in either girls’ event (7-3) to claim the hot seat. Hess defeated Franki Spain in the semifinals and engaged in what had to have been a nail-biting final against Noelle Tate, dropping the last 9-ball to claim the title.
Logan Whitaker, Landon Hollingsworth and Joey Tate
Hollingsworth loses a single match out of 14 to claim 18U Boys and ProAm Titles
Had he gone undefeated in both the 18U Boys and ProAm events, Landon Hollingsworth’s trip through both fields (22 and 27 entrants, respectively) might have been referred to as a ‘romp.’
It was Joey Tate who spoiled use of that word with a winners’ side semifinal victory over him in the 18U Boys division.
Hollingsworth had gotten by Dakota Bryant 7-5, shut out D’Angelo “Jawz” Spain and sent Niko Konkel to the loss side 7-3 before running into Joey Tate, losing the match 7-3 and joining Bryant, Spain and Konkel on the loss side. At the other end of the bracket, Logan Whitaker won two straight 7-2 matches against Tucker Weber and Nathan Nunes and two 7-5 victories against Brent Worth and in his winners’ side semifinal, Jas Makhani (more on this top-notch, 13-year-old competitor later in the report, detailing the 13U Boys event). Tate shut Whitaker out to claim the hot seat.
Hollingsworth arrived on the loss side of the bracket and downed Payne McBride 7-5, while Makhani was busy stopping a four-match, loss-side winning streak by Gage Mouret with a double hill win. Hollingsworth then stopped Makhani 7-2 in the quarterfinals and Whitaker 7-5 in the semifinals. Another ‘signature’ rivalry match between Hollingsworth and Joey Tate was on. Hollingsworth left little room for error, winning the final 9-3 to claim the first of his two weekend titles.
The matchup was not repeated in the ProAm event because Joey Tate was sent to the loss side, double hill, in his opening match against Hayden Ernst (about whom we will also hear, later in this report) and then, after four straight 7-1 victories, eliminated by Nathan Nunes 7-5 in one of the 5th/6th place matches. Hollingsworth fell short of earning any ‘romp’ credentials in ProAm competition when, among others things, one of the female competitors, Precilia Kinsley, battled him to double hill, before he was able to advance beyond the second winners’ side round (He’d sent Skylar Hess to the loss side 7-3 in the previous round). He proceeded to defeat Logan Whitaker (3) and in a winners’ side semifinal, Justin Mawyin (1) to punch his ticket to the hot seat match. He was joined by Payne McBride, who’d survived a double hill match against Nunes in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Nunes would move west to down Tate and in the quarterfinals, Jas Makhani 7-2 before being shut out by McBride in the semifinals. In their second match, a race to 9, Hollingsworth gave up only a single rack to McBride to claim the JIC Stop #3’s ProAm title.
Colston Harrelston , Hayden Ernst and Jas Makhani
Regarding the aforementioned Hayden Ernst and Jas Makhani, attention shifts to the last of the JIC events this past weekend, the quest for the 13-entrant, 13U Boys title, in which they both played a major role. They met twice; once in a winners’ side quarterfinal, won by Makhani 7-3 and in the finals, won by Ernst.
Following his victory over Ernst, Makhani (whose father owns Breaktime Billiards where the JIC events played out) advanced to down Deke Squier 7-2 in one of the winners’ side semifinals. Colston Harrelson joined him in the hot seat match after defeating Tanner McKinney 7-5 in the other one. Makhani claimed the hot seat 7-3. On arrival to the loss side of the bracket, McKinney was defeated by Ernst, who went on to eliminate “Jawz” Spain in the quarterfinals and Harrelston in the semifinals, both 7-4.
In their second match, Ernst defeated Makhani 9-4 in the 13U Boys final to claim the title.
The next stop (#4) on the JIC’s 2023 season of events, scheduled for the weekend of June 16-18, will be hosted by Michael’s Billiards in Fairfield, OH.
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