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A strong field of forty-one came in search of glory on February 9th and 10th at Malarkey's Pool & Brew Second Annual ‘February Freeze' 9-Ball Open (in Tacoma Washington) with the house adding $1000. It was Paul Potier who early on proved how strong of a player he truly is, losing (3-7) to a soaring Dan Louie, who coincidently also happened to be his road partner.
Potier then slowly surged off the one-loss side, handily defeating Bob Wolff (7-1), Steve Hanks (7-1), then reaching the money only to steamroll his competition beating Dick Trichler (7-3), Jay Pintar (7-1), Criegh Dumo (7-3), Al Perez (7-4), and in the surprising turn of events completely blanking Dan Louie (7-0), leaving Dan dazed and stunned in the 3rd place spot.
The winners side of the brackets was dominated early on by Malarkey's own Don Wirtiman, who had wins over John Doherty “J.D.” (7-6), Scott Thurston (7-4), John Plunkett (7-6), Jay Pintar (7-2) and Criegh Dumo (7-4) to face Dan Louie who ran the bottom of the winners side with authority defeating Rennie Amadeo (7-3), Raul Abenojar (7-6), Paul Potier (7-3), Jay Siongco (7-4) and Al Perez (7-6) to reach the pre-point match facing off against Don Wirtiman, but in a strange turn of event, Louie couldn't get on the ball, letting Don defeat him (7-3) to sit and wait on the Point.
The top of the one-loss side was run with authority by J.D. who lost his first match (6-7) against Don Wirtiman only to win his next seven matches with wins over Pat Vice (7-5), Big Al (7-2), Junior Tolentino (7-3), Dannie Stewart (7-6), Jay Siongco (7-4) and Marty Turpin (7-4) only to lose to eventual fourth place finisher Al Perez, but what a truly great streak!
After Potier stunned Dan Louie (7-0) in what amounted to a twenty-two minute match, he went on to play Don Wirtiman who was waiting at the point. The championship match was one race to thirteen. The match early on was controlled by Potier, who led 2-0, but with his strong safety play Don Wirtiman was easily back in the running, tying the match at 4-4. In the end, Potier's thundering breaks and ‘get it done' attitude proved its best over Don (13-10) who looked to make a match of it early, but slowed down in the end.
In addition, congratulations to Julie Valdez for winning top woman and $50 for her efforts over Cindy Sliva and Rhiannon Stewart.
