It wasn't exactly Billy Jean King vs Bobby Riggs, but Earl Strickland won Friday night's battle of the sexes against Karen Corr at the Joss NE 9-Ball Tour finale at Spot Shot Billiards in Portland, ME.
Strickland raced to an early 6-1 lead, but a scratch on the break in rack seven allowed Corr back into the match and she took full advantage of the chance. Corr closed the gap to one game at 6-5 but then it was her turn to falter on the break as she came up dry in rack twelve. Strickland would win that rack and then break & run the next to get to the hill at 8-5. Strickland made a ball on the break in rack fourteen but was forced to play safe leading to an all-out safety battle. Strickland kept Corr on the defensive during the battle and finally was able to earn ball-in-hand to finish off the rack and score the 9-5 victory.
Strickland commented after the match that Corr really impressed him. "She made a couple real nice outs and even when I had her tied up, she moved the balls around real well. You have to be able to do that sort of thing to beat great players and she sure did it well." Strickland also commented about a jump-shot that Corr made in the match. "I pushed out to a jump-shot in the middle of the table. I used to be real good at making those shots, so I like to push out to them. She jumped and made the ball to get out that rack. It was a pretty good shot."
Other players advancing on the winners side were Shaun Wilkie, Rodney Morris, Earl Herring, Teddy Garrahan, Ray McNamara, Tom D'Alfonso and Danny Basavich.
Still alive on the one-loss side are players including Grady Mathews, Mike Davis, Danny Hewitt, Alex Pagulayan, Frankie Hernandez and Charlie Bryant.
Check out our online brackets for full results from the event and Diana Hoppe's photo gallery for images from the event.
Photo courtesy of Diana Hoppe - Pool Pics by Hoppe
