Jason Sweet took the long road, but still ended up in the winners circle at the Desert Classic Tour's B/C event at Bullshooters on March 23rd and 24th.
It was hard to pick out a favorite with this tough field that included such notables as Burt Balancad, Mike Hamman, Pat Dicker, Will Sexton, Carl Stewart, Oscar Avila, Jude Espinoza and Jason Sweet.
Sweet's path through the brackets took an unexpected detour midway through Saturday when he lost a match to JR Flores and had to take the trip to the one loss side.
Flores would continue through Saturday undefeated, only to lose to Gary Koschnik on Sunday in the final four on the winners side. Koschnik has been a long time supporter of the Desert Classic Tour, playing in all of the open events improving his game every time. In this event, he would face off against Tucson's Carl Stewart for the hot-seat.
Koschnik gave it his all, but Stewart was too much for him to deal with, as Stewart took the hot-seat with a 7-4 victory.
On the one loss side, Flores bounced back from his loss to Koschnik and defeated Chris Miller 7-5. At the same time, Pat Dicker dropped his second straight match in a 7-4 loss to Sweet.
Flores looked ready to end Sweet's run as he led the next match 6-4, but Sweet came back to win the last three games and steal the match 7-6.
The semi-final match saw Sweet taking on Koschnik in a 7-6 race. Again, Sweet looked to be on the ropes as Koschnik led the match 5-3, only to see the pockets appear to shrink on Koschnik as he was unable to win another game against Sweet. Sweet won four straight games to capture the match 7-5 and earn his place in the finals against Stewart.
Stewart had looked untouchable all weekend, while Sweet struggled early in last couple matches, So of course, Sweet ran over Stewart in the first set of the finals. Sweet broke a 1-1 tie and ran out to a 4-1 lead before winning that match 7-2.
In the second set of the finals, Sweet just kept on winning as he pocketed the first four 9-balls for a quick 4-0 lead. Stewart would just be unable to put anything together in this match as Sweet scored another 7-2 win in the second set for first place.
