'The Magic Man' Teddy Garrahan
Mike Zuglan's Joss Northeast 9-Ball Tour stop #7 was at Joe Speach's Salt City Billiards this past weekend. While 45 players shot for the $5100 in prize money, the great pool fans of the Syracuse, NY fans got to see some great pool and enjoy some of the best food you ever tasted at a sporting event. Sausage and peppers, tortalini soup, barbecue beef, macaroni and meatballs, carrot cake and more were on the menu. If you didn't cash at this tournament you could at least gain 5 pounds. Adding $1500 and playing on some great Gold Crown one tables with Simonis cloth and using centennial balls made this a really great event.
Saturday started with some very tough matches Ron "Julio" Casanzio had to beet Chuck Altomare, Ryan McCreesh and Mike Zuglan to go through the day unscathed, Rochester's Lyn Wechsler had to win over Raphael Saldana, last weeks winner Ray Cruz and have an incredible comeback from an 4-8 deficit to win on the hill against Bob Levandowski. Joining Casanzio and Wechsler on the winners side for the day was Teddy Garrahan and Jim Forsythe. On the one loss side we had Tim Parisian, Mike Zuglan, Gary Empey and Bob Levandowski. Making the cash line but not returning Sunday was Time Allen, Mike Hurley, Ryan McCreesh and Claude Spence.
Sunday Started with Teddy Garrrahan beating Wechsler only to lose to Julio for the hot seat. Casanzio had beaten Forsythe and now had to wit for the play on the one loss side.Wechsler upset Zuglan 9-7 and then lost to Gary Empey. Garrahan beat Empey for the losers side and got a chance to meet Ron Casanzio in the finals. In the finals the people got to see why we call Ted Garrahan the Magic Man. Garrahan won the first set of the true double elimination 9-5 including an incredible out from the hill that included a jump shot a table length combination and a carom. In the second set it was 6-0 by the time Casanzio got to shoot and when he did he played great. Playing safe and scratching his way to win 4 games Julio then proceeded to snap two 9's in a row to get to 6 and we all thought it was going to be a match again. But when Casanzio broke and made nothing Ted made the one and a 2-9 carom to win the match.
All the staff at Salt City did a great job and the fans got to see great pool with no admission charge. We look forward a returning next year and I personally am not eating a thing the week before this event. Many thanks to Joe and Judy Speach for a great job. Next stop on the tour is Nov. 17 in Levittown, NY(Long Island) at Leisuretime Billiards.
