Sixty seven players made their way to Snookers Pool Lounge in
Providence, RI on the weekend of November 17th and 18th for the 19th
Annual Ocean State 9-Ball Championship. Previous winners of this prestigious $5000 added event include George San Souci, Mika Immonen, Danny Basavich and Mike Zuglan.
This year, there was no shortage of top players with Dennis Hatch, Tony Robles, San Souci and Joe Tucker all in attendance.
The match for the hot-seat saw Tony Robles send San Souci to the one loss side by the score of 9-5 leaving Robles comfortably sitting in the hot-seat waiting for his opponent in the finals.
On the one loss side, San Souci ran into a determined Jeremy Sossei. Sossei had lost to Mike Dechaine on Saturday, but had been running through players on the one loss side all day Sunday. Sossei had Sunday wins over Kevin Guimond, Joey Testa, Dennis Hatch and Joe Tucker. San Souci was soon added to that list by the score of 9-7.
Sossei would have his hands full with the task of beating Tony Robles twice in the finals, but the first set went his way 9-5 to force a second set. Sossei led the second set 8-4, but Robles would not be the champion that he is if he simply gave up when he was down. Robles ran three racks and then won a fourth rack to tie the score at 8-8 and leave the players playing one game for the title. The final game became a safety battle and it was Robles that blinked first with a weak safety allowing Sossei to take control and run out the final rack.
Sossei earned $2500 for the win, his first on the Joss Tour. Robles settled for $1700 in second place prize money.
