Nic Torraca and Ken Kerner
The brackets started separately and in a break from an unwritten tradition, instead of merging near the end, they stayed that way, creating two sets of winners on this past weekend’s (Jan. 27-28) stop on the Garden State Pool Tour. Ken Kerner came back from a hot-seat loss to down Nic Torraca in the upper-bracket tournament for Fargo Rates between 526 and 675. George Latko, Jr. went undefeated, and in the finals, stopped a five-match, loss-side winning streak by Allison Honeymar-Troncoso. The $100-added upper bracket drew 20 entrants, while the lower bracket featured 28 entrants, all hosted by Diamond Jim’s Billiards & Pub in Nanuet, NY.
Latko, Jr.’s undefeated run through the lower bracket opened up with a 5-1 victory over Mike Strassberg, a shutout over David Moore and in one of the winners’ side semifinals, a double-hill victory over Steve Way, sending Latko into the hot seat match. From the opposite end of the bracket, Paulo Alves worked his way through Luigi Damien 5-3, Roy Pestone 5-1, Mercedes Uribe 5-1 and in the other winners’ side semifinal, Chris Hanold, double-hill. Latko, Jr. snared the hot seat 5-2 over Alves and waited for a little over two hours for Allison Honeymar to complete her loss-side run.
Honeymar, who’d started strong with a shutout in her opening match versus Tracey Muller and backed that up with a double-hill win over Will Tsentas in the second round, had her loss-side ‘ship’ launched when she was shut out by Chris Hanold. She began her loss-side battles against Zachary Almonte and eliminated him 4-1. She then faced and defeated Muller a second time (6-2) before picking up Steve Way, just in from the winners’ side semifinal. Also dropping in from the winners’ side semifinal was Chris Hanold, who drew Will Tsentas, who’d launched his own five-match, loss-side winning streak that Honeymar had sent him on. Tsentas had chalked up two 5-1 victories against Rashid Muhammad and David Moore, with a double-hill piece of Vincent Chang in the middle. He then eliminated Roy Pestone 6-2 to draw Hanold.
Hanold stopped Tsentas’ streak 5-3 and moved into the quarterfinals. Honeymar arranged for her quarterfinal rematch against Hanold by eliminating Way, double hill. She chalked up her second straight, double-hill with a successful rematch win against Hanold.
Honeymar moved on and tallied a ‘good sign’ semifinal shutout over Alves to earn a shot against Latko, waiting in the hot seat. Latko closed out the lower-bracket tournament with a 5-1 victory over Honeymar in the finals.
Kerner takes two out of three over Torraca to claim upper-bracket title
A hard-fought semifinal gave Nic Torraca a second chance against Ken Kerner, which he used to his advantage to knot their match records against each other at 1-1 going into the second set of the final. Kerner found his stroke in that second set, winning it to claim the upper bracket title.
Kerner’s path to the winners’ circle went through his first three opponents without giving up more than two racks to any of them. He got by Jimmy Kardias (1), Rich Hourihan (2) and, in a winners’ side semifinal, Pascal Dufresne (2). The recipient of an opening-round bye, Torraca got by David Marchant 5-4 (Marchant racing to 7), Kevin Scalzitti 5-2 and in the other winners’ side semifinal, Joe Valania 6-1.
Kerner took the first of three sets against Torraca 7-1. He claimed the hot seat and waited on Torraca’s return.
Moving to the loss side, Dufresne and Valania ran into opponents who were both working on four-match, loss-side winning streaks. Dufresne picked up Jimmy Kardias, who’d recently chalked up loss-side wins #3 and #4 against Nick Restivo 6-4 and Kevin Scalzitti 5-3. Valania got Naldo Trancoso whose 3rd and 4th loss-side wins had eliminated Rich Hourihan 5-1 and Julian Tierney 5-4 (Tierney racing to 7).
Both of those loss-side runs came to an end. Dufresne eliminated Kardias 7-4, as Valania was downing Troncoso 6-4. Dufresne stopped Joe Valania’s loss-side trip at one, defeating him 7-3 in the quarterfinals.
And then came the hard-fought, double hill semifinal. With Dufresne racing to 7, Torraca got his second, and as it turned out, third shot against Kerner with a 5-6 victory over Dufresne.
With Kerner racing to 7, Torraca took the first set of the double-elimination final 4-4. Then, the Torraca ‘tank’ just seemed to run out of gas. Kerner fought back in the second set, allowed Torraca only a single rack and left the table with the event title (and appropriate cash) in his pocket.
Tour director Dave Fitzgerald thanked Stephine and her Diamond Jim’s staff for their hospitality, along with tour sponsors Brutal, Billiards Engineering, Outsville, JFlowers Cues & Cases, John Bender, In the Box, World Beaters Apparel, Kamui, and Off the Rail Apparel.
The next stop on the Garden State Pool Tour, an Open 10-Ball event scheduled for the weekend of February 17-18, will be hosted by Shooter’s Family Billiards in Wayne, New Jersey.
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