38 Strong players from throughout the North East came down to the Blaze Tour's 28th event, which stopped at Skyline Billiards, in Brooklyn, NY.
Several top players from the North East came out to play including... Jorge Rodriguez, "Get Some" Shaun Wilkie, Mike Fingers, "Spain" Marc Vidal, Eddie Abraham, Mhet Vergara, Adam Kielar and WPBA pro "Capo" Caroline Pao
The blend of local up and coming players along with seasoned battle tested road veterans provided a very competitive pool tournament.
2007 Ocean State Champion Jeremy Sossei, also came to play in preparation for the upcoming 2008 Ocean State Championship, which stirred up a buzz.
The Blaze Tour event also had three women pool players who came out to play in the "Open field"... Asia Cysak, "The Other" Alison Fischer, and WPBA pro "Capao" Caroline Pao.
Caroline Pao made a statement in this event as she earned gritty victories over Joey Land, then was knocked to the loser's bracket by veteran "King Kong" Joey Kong 6-4. On the one-loss side Caroline fought back to defeat Victor Nao 6-3, and came back from a 4-2 deficit to beat Lionel Rivera in a come from behind thrilling Hill HIll battle. Caroline went on to win another "Hill-Hill" battle with top NY players Mike Fingers, before running into a "Hot Stick" in Adam Kielar who left Carololine at the gate 6-0. (Caroline Pao finished 7th)
After the tournament Caroline mentioned that this tournament was a great warm up for her WPBA event at the Hard Rock Casino in Florida, which is coming up November 16th.
The "One Loss" side match between Joey Kong and Shaun Wilke was interesting to watch. In the end with the score tied (HIll-Hill), Shaun Wilke fired in a 5 ball to cheat the pocket al little as he tried to bounce out for position... and the cue ball reacted funny off of the rail and to Sean's dismay bounced out of the pocket ending Sean's run.
The players had to endure a short power outage, that only left Skyline Billiards with three tables with the lights on for about an hour before the glitch was fixed. While some of the lights went out in the pool room... there was nothing that could distract two of the hottest players in the tournament. Mhet Vergara and house player Jorge Rodriguez.
Jorge, is an emerging player who showed a lot of heart while having a nice run at the US Open. In this event Jorge went through the winner's side defeating Gary Murgia 7-6, Greg McAndrews 7-3, Mike Fingers 7-4 and Skyline's own Rob Pole 7-2.
Mhet Vergara earned impressive wins over Wali Muhammed 7-4, Ariel Rivera 7-5, Joey Kong 7-4, and Ray Lee 7-3 to land in the match for the hot seat.
In the "Hot Seat" match... Mhet and Jorge went blow for blow, but ultimately Mhet ran out a very impressive rack to earn the first spot in the finals.
On the One loss side "Hot Seat" match, Jorge was to face local up and coming player Ray Lee, who just came off an impressive 6-4 win over "King Kong" Joey Kong. In the "One Loss" hot seat match, Jorge was dominant as he only missed a few balls against Ray on his way to a decisive 6-1 victory.
Both Mhet and Jorge split in the finals.
The Blaze Tour “Pro Am” 9 Ball tour took the F train to Brooklyn, for their Skyline Billiard Club Stop
November 19, 2008