22 of the best A and B plyers descended on the Renaissance Billiard Club in Quincy Ma for a stop on the New England A/B Series tour. Some of the top players in attendance were Chris Leal, Walter Bryska, Rich Minichello, Joe Dupree, Shane Cote and Dominic Sousa who recently came in 4th at the Allen Hopkins bar box tourney.
The semi finals on the winers side saw Joey Dupree, who has been playing "lights out" lately, taking on local hotshot Jason Circelo. The match went neck and neck up to the 5-5 point when Circelo scratched on the break and never got back to the table. Dupree ran 2 racks and out to win the set.
Semi final number 2 saw Paul Dryden against one of the favorites in the tournament, Shane Cote. Cote already had one win on tour this season and was looking for victory #2. This match was one sided as Shane cruised to a 7-1 win over Paul including a running a 5 pack along the way.
The hot seat match was Shane Cote vs Joe Dupree. Dupree came out of the box firing a 4 pack at Shane. Before Shane got on the board, the score was 6-1 and Shane eventually fell to Dupree 7-3. This sent Cote to the one loss side.
There were some other great matches on the one loss side including Rich Minichello crushing Dominic Sousa. Minichello ran a 4 pack on Souza and Souza couldn't come back from that, losing 7-2.
The semi finals on the loser side was Rich Minchello and Shane Cote. Everything went against Rich this set and Shane played extremely well. Shane beat rich 7-1 to set up a rematch between him and Joey Dupree in the finals.
The finals were a single race to 11 games and starting out like the first set with Joey running the first 5 racks before shane could get to the table. Shane won a couple of games to make it 5-3 but missed an easy 6 ball and joey won that game plus 3 more to pull ahead 9-3. Shane said "Hold on, I am not that easy" as he won the next 4 games to get back to 9-7. Joey ran the next rack to put him self on the hill and was running out in the next game when he jawed a 7 ball and gave the game to Shane. Shane ran the next 2 racks and things seemed to be slipping away from Joey Dupree. The final game featured multiple safety shots at the 1 ball and finaly Shane made a great shot on the 1 ball but was then forced to play another safe shot on the 2 ball. Shane played a great safety, but Joey jumped over the obstructing ball and made the two with perfect shape and ran the rest of the rack out for his second title of this year.
Complete Payouts:
1st Joe Dupree $500
2nd Shane Cote $250
3rd Rich Minichello $160
4th Dominic Sousa $65
5th/6th Jayson Circelo, Paul Dryden $45
Tour director Marc DionneI thanked Mark Ransom for hosting the event at his pool room. A reminder that the season finale is at Snookers Billiards in RI on april 17th. $60 entry and $300 added. For additional info email Marc Dionne at madion9@aol.com.
