Winner Kevin Blackstock and Runner-Up Carl Guimond
Sunday February 14th on Valentines day the Dominiak Cues Northeast 10-Ball Tour came to Springfield, MA for tour stop #11 at the popular Snookers's Billiards. The tour would like to once again thank Snooker's and the staff for being a great host to the tour.
On this Valentines Day we saw a slightly smaller field than usual, but certainly not short of talent! We saw many tour regulars walk in the door ready to play, including tour regulars Gene Hunt, Mike Wheeler, Art Houghtaling, Kevin Blackstock, Steve Parise and Tim Haley. Also in attendence were many previous tour stop winners including Stan Wilk, Norm Vernon and Chuck Hill.
The top half of the winners bracket would see Carl Guimond steadily making his way to the hot seat match with wins over Mike Wheeler in the opening round, then consecutive wins over Kevin Ketz, Keith Lauer to face Norm Vernon in the hot seat. The bottom half of the winners side would see previous tour stop winner Norm Vernon make his way to the hot seat to play Carl with wins over Chuck Hill in the opening round, then wins over tour regulars Tim Haley and Kevin Blackstock. The hot seat match would prove to be very close between Carl and Norm, but Carl came up with the win to send Norm to the 1 loss side and earned his spot in the finals.
The 1 loss side would see tour regular Kevin Blackstock take wins over Doug Wabnig and Stan Wilk to again meet up with Norm Vernon to try and avenge his earlier loss to Norm sending him to the B side of the chart. This time around Kevin Blackstock beared down and earned his spot in the finals over Norm Vernon. Congrats to Norm on a strong showing and 3rd place finish!
Around 7pm the 1 set finals was called to the table between Carl Guimond and Kevin Blackstock. We extended the race to 6 for the finals and we were off! Early on it was a back and forth match, then with the score 3-2 in favor of Kevin, he opened it up to take a commanding lead to 5-2. Carl would battle back and win the next game to make it 5-3, but in game 9 of the finals Kevin Blackstock smoothly ran out the rack to take home his first Dominiak Tour Stop win! Congrats to Carl Guimond for a very good performance and strong 2nd place finish.
Rodney Polak was the winning ticket holder of the beautiful Dominiak Cue donated by Bill Dominiak. Bill generously donates a new beautiful cue to every tour stop in support of pool players. Visit www.DominiakCues.com to see Bill's work and great prices. Gene Hunt was the winner of the tour T-Shirt donated by co-sponsor www.LeagueShirts.com and trophies for the top 2 finishers were provided by co-sponsor www.RackemWear.com..
The tour will be in Ayer, MA at The Billiards Cafe on Feb. 28th, visit the tour website www.DominiakCuesTour.com for all info and schedule.
