 Room owner Tom Filipski and Shawn Putnam |
Shawn Putnam brought the Viking Cue 9-Ball Tour to Quentin Corner Pocket in Palentine, Il over the weekend of November 17th - 18th for a double header. A $1500 added open event and a $500 added amateur event which brought in a tough field of 64 players.
Top seeds in the open event included Putnam, Nevel, Santos Sambajon, Ike Runnels and Gil Hernandez. Putnam and Nevel ran into each other early, with Nevel coming out the winner by the score of 9-7.
Putnam started plowing through the one loss side looking for another shot at Nevel. Three 9-3 matches saw Putnam eliminate Ron Sheppard, Tom Spencer and Scott Laird. Putnam then faced Ike Runnels and neither player seemed willing to give an inch in this one. The match went back and forth until the end, with Putnam scoring a hill-hill win. Next up for Putnam was another 9-3 win, this time over Eddie Balderas who had just been sent to the one loss side after losing to Nevel for the hot-seat.
The finals would see Putnam trying to defeat Nevel twice. The first set was another close one, with Putnam avenging his earlier loss and beating Nevel by the same 9-7 score.
The second set saw Putnam race out to a quick 6-1 lead and then stall as Nevel ran five straight racks to tie the score and then pulled ahead 7-6. The table got the better of both players after that, as they both struggled with bad leaves and tough pockets. The match went hill-hill and neither player was able to show the game that had gotten them this far. Both players missed an 8-ball, but Nevel was the last player to miss it and Putnam took the match 9-8.
The tournament win was the 52nd Viking Cue 9-Ball Tour win for Putnam, and his first since being diagnosed with Diabetes last year.
The Amateur event saw Scott Cohen take the hot-seat with a convincing 7-1 win over Mike Eck. On the one loss side, Eck lost to Mike McGovern 5-3 and was forced to settle for third.
McGovern forced a second set in the finals with a 7-4 won over Cohen. Just like the Open event, the final match went hill-hill but this time it was the player from the winners side, Scott Cohen, scoring the hill-hill win and taking home the first place prize money.
Click here for Open Division Payouts.
Click here for Amateur Division Payouts.
