Sam Vitellaro, Mike Gasper and Stewart Warnock
Stewart “The Scottish Lion” Warnock swept a field of 38 entrants to take first place in the $750-added Tri-State Tour stop on Saturday, February 20. The 10-ball event was hosted by Sandcastle Billiards in Edison, NJ.
Warnock started his campaign on a strong note by sending perennial Tri-State favorite Danny Cintron to the west bracket 7-3 (from which he would not return), then defeating Mike Panzarella 7-5 and Paul Wortman 7-4 to move among the winners' side final four. He faced and defeated Paul Everton 7-6 to get into the hot seat match versus Sam Vitellaro. Vitellaro, whose climb to the semifinals would conclude his best showing of the season thus far, had just sent Raul Reyes, Jr. over 6-2. With four down and two to go, Warnock defeated Vitellaro 9-6 to gain the hot seat.
Everton moved over to the one-loss side and ran into Warnock's eventual opponent in the finals, Mike Gasper, who'd moved past Christopher Lazarovitch 7-4 and Leo Liu 7-5 to face him. Reyes met George Osipovitch, who'd defeated Sandie Patarino 6-5 and Allen Wong 6-2. It was Gasper and Reyes in the quarterfinals after Gasper got by Everton 7-2 and Reyes downed Osipovitch 6-3. Gasper advanced to the semifinals versus Vitellaro with a 7-2 win over Reyes, and then finished Vitellaro's bid 8-5.
Gasper and Warnock traded racks to a 2-2 tie before Warnock pulled ahead by two. Still down by that two-point gap at the 5-3 mark, Gasper won two in a row to knot things at 5-5. Warnock finished it right there, winning the last two to tally his first Tri-State win since May of 2009.
Special thanks went out to Sterling Gaming and Milliken Super Pro professional cue sports cloth for their sponsorship of the event.
