Bucky Souvanthong, Diamond Billiards owner Fran Imburgia and Ron Casanzio
In the first three Joss NE 9-Ball Tour stops of the young season, Bucky Souvanthong has played in the finals of all three, and won one. He kept that record intact over the weekend at stop four at Diamond Billiards Bar & Grill in Rochester, NY.
Souvanthong had Saturday wins over Joe Wysocki, Marco Kam and Rohit Aggarwal to qualify as one of the finale four undefeated players. He came back on Sunday to face Dan Sharlow on one side of the winner’s bracket, while Ron Casanzio took on Nick Coppola on the other. Souvanthong and Casanzio both scored 9-3 wins to earn themselves each a spot in the hot-seat match. Casanzio then went on to take the hot-seat, sending Souvanthong to the one loss side, by the score of 9-7.
Souvanthong found Nate Marshall waiting on the left side of the board. Marshall had dropped a hill-hill decision to Sharlow in the first round on Saturday, but then went on to win seven straight on the one loss side. Any hopes of extending that streak to eight was quickly extinguished by Souvanthong in a 7-2 semi-final match.
The Souvanthong / Casanzio final match was not only a rematch of the hot-seat match, but also a rematch of the finals from stop one at East Ridge Billiards back on October 3rd. In that event, Casanzio double dipped Souvanthong and Bucky would get his revenge this time, by double dipping Casanzio 9-8 and 7-2 for his second tour stop win of the season.
In Sunday’s second chance tournament, it was George Lashoff coming back from the one loss side to double dip the hot-seat occupant in the finals. That hot-seat winner was Joe Wysocki, who had sent Lashoff to the one loss side in the quarter finals. Wysocki went on to defeat Marco Kam for the hot-seat 3-2, while Lashoff had wins over Fran Imburgia, Mike Renshaw and Kam on the left side. Lashoff won the first set of the finals 3-0 and the second set by a score of 3-2. The win was Lashoff’s first win (and first cash) on the Joss NE 9-Ball Tour.
The Joss NE 9-Ball Tour will be at American Pool and Billiards in Portland, Maine this weekend for another $1500/$500 added event.
