Kristina Tkach and Lisa Cossette
Moore and Mastermaker battle twice; Moore takes 2021 VA State Open 10-Ball title
Russia’s Kristina Tkach, fresh off her win at the Michael Montgomery Memorial Tournament in Texas on the last weekend in January, backed that title up with an undefeated victory at the 2021 VA State Ladies 10-Ball Championships on the weekend of February 20-21. Tkach also signed on to the concurrently-run Open 10-Ball Championships, where she was defeated in the opening round and won three on the loss side before being eliminated. Held under the auspices of the Action Pool Tour (APT), the ladies event drew a short field of 11 entrants to Diamond Billiards in Midlothian, VA.
Eric Moore, in the meantime, the APT’s 2016 Tour Champion and the winner of this event that year, as well, was defeated in the battle for the Open 10-Ball hot seat by the event’s 2019 winner, Danny Mastermaker, but came back to down him in the finals. The Open event drew 61 entrants to Diamond Billiards.
Tkach played a total of five matches to claim the ladies’ title. She entered the third round of play without having given up a single rack. She shut out both Soo Emmett and Johnna McDaniel to face Kia Burwell in one winners’ side semifinal. The event’s defending champion, Liz Taylor, downed Shanna Lewis 6-3 in what was their first opening round and faced Lisa Cossette in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Tkach downed Burwell 6-1. Taylor joined her in the hot seat match with a 6-2 win over Cossette. Entering that hot seat match with a 95% game-winning percentage (18-1), Tkach gave up another one of the four racks her opponents chalked up against her and sent the defending champion, Taylor, to the semifinals.
On the loss side, Burwell picked up Shanna Lewis, who, after her defeat at the hands of Taylor had eliminated Soo Emmett, double hill, and Kristen Daniels 5-3. Cossette drew Jacki Duggan, who’d been sent to the loss side by Burwell and downed Amy Williams 5-1 and Johnna McDaniel 5-2 to reach Cossette.
Burwell shut out Lewis. Cossette spoiled the possible rematch between Burwell and Duggan by defeating Duggan 5-2. Cossette and Burwell battled to double hill before Cossette prevailed for a shot at the defending champ in the semifinals. Cossette, on a roll, gave up only a single rack to Taylor and turned to challenge Tkach in the hot seat.
To her credit, Cossette chalked up more racks against Tkach than any of the young Russian’s previous opponents. In fact, Cossette chalked up as many as all of Tkach’s previous four opponents combined. Downing Cossette 6-2, Tkach claimed the 2021 Ladies 10-Ball title having won 30 of 34 games played, for an 88% game-winning percentage.
Danny Mastermaker and Eric Moore
Moore and Mastermaker battle twice for Open title
Though Eric Moore did not have to face the Open event’s 2020 champion (BJ Ussery) or its runner-up (Reymart Lim), neither of whom competed for the 2021 title, Moore did face a familiar APT competitor in Danny Mastermaker, twice. Though luck of the bracket draw kept Moore out of the path of a number of previous tour champions and familiar APT faces like Mike Davis, Chris Bruner (2019 tour champion), Shane Wolford (last year’s de facto tour champion in an abbreviated-by-the-pandemic, two-event season) and Brian Dietzenbach, among others, Moore (who finished in 5th place last year) did have to get by Scott Roberts, who finished two slots ahead of him in last year’s two-event standings.
Moore’s six-match march to the hot seat went through Brent Hensley 7-4, a shutout over Chris Pyle and another 7-4 win, over Mike McPherson, before pulling up to the aforementioned Scott Roberts, who challenged Moore to his first of only two double hill matches. Moore advanced to meet Bobby Chamberlain in one of the winners’ side semifinals.
Mastermaker, in the meantime, got by Kevin Williams and Michael Bumpass, both 7-2 and then gave up only one to Ed Culhane, before chalking up another 7-2, versus David Hunt. This set him up to draw Shane Wolford in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Moore downed Chamberlain 7-5 to get into the hot seat match, where he was joined by Mastermaker, who’d sent Wolford to the loss side 7-3. It was Mastermaker who locked Moore up in his second double hill fight, battling for the hot seat. Mastermaker prevailed and waited on Moore’s return.
On the loss side, Chamberlain picked up the tour’s 2019 champion, Chris Bruner, who’d been sent over by Wolford and was working on an eight-match, loss-side winning streak that would take him as far as the semifinals and had most recently included wins (#5 & #6) over David Hunt 6-4 and Bruce Campbell 6-1 (Campbell, three rounds earlier, had been responsible for eliminating Kristina Tkach). Wolford drew Mike Davis, who’d been defeated by Bobby Chamberlain and was in the midst of a six-match winning streak that was about to end and had recently included wins over Scott Roberts 6-1 and Mark Nanashee 6-2.
Bruner continued his winning streak with a double hill victory over Chamberlain. He was joined in the quarterfinals by Wolford, who’d stopped Davis’ streak 6-4. Another double hill fight ensued in those quarterfinals and eventually advanced Bruner over Wolford into the semifinals.
Eric Moore put a punctuation mark into ending Bruner’s streak, allowing him only a single rack to earn a second shot at Mastermaker, waiting for him in the hot seat. Eric completed his 2021 10-Ball Championship campaign with a final 8-5 victory over Mastermaker.
Tour directors Kris Wylie and Tiger Baker thanked the ownership and staff at Diamond Billiards, as well as this event’s sponsors, Haselman & Hunt, D.D.S., P.C. Family Dentistry (www.Haselman & Hunt.com). The schedule for upcoming events on the Action Pool Tour, like so much else at this time, is being curtailed by restrictions associated with individual communities and venues. Wylie and Baker are monitoring the situation as best they can and while they hope that they will be able to announce other APT stops in the future, the only one that is known for sure as of this writing is an event scheduled for July 17-18, which will be hosted by Wolfe’s Den Billiards in Roanoke,VA.
