Stan Tourangeau
Stan Tourangeau worked his way through a larger-than-expected field of entrants at the Memorial Weekend 9-Ball Championship and went undefeated to claim the title. The $1,640-added event, which had originally advertised a 64-player field drew twice that many to the 15th Street Grill in Auburn, WA. Held under the auspices of the not-for-profit organization of pool players in the greater Seattle area, called Players Club Limited, selected matches of the event throughout the weekend were live-streamed through the services of Rail2Rail.TV.
Tourangeau’s undefeated effort was almost derailed at the outset by Tommy Sliva who battled him to double hill before giving way and allowing him to advance. Tourangeau got by three more opponents – Tom Christine 7-4, Dave Demmit 7-5 and Clay Belvoir 7-4 – to arrive at a winners’ side semifinal match against Sean Lewis. Randy Baker, in the meantime, who would end up facing Tourangeau twice, squared off against Jeff Coates in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Lewis would end up giving Tourangeau a second, double hill run for his money, but Tourangeau advanced to the hot seat match to face Baker, who’d sent Coates to the loss side 7-5. In their first of two, Tourangeau downed Baker 7-3 to claim the hot seat.
On the loss side, Coates picked up James Davee, who’d shut out Lito Atendido and defeated Tim Tweedell double hill to reach him. Lewis drew John Doherty, who’d been sent to the loss side by Baker in a winners’ side quarterfinal and then eliminated Gerald O’Connor 6-4 and shut out Blair Wentzell.
Davee and Lewis advanced to the quarterfinals with identical 6-4 victories over Coates and Doherty. Davee then eliminated Lewis 6-2. Baker earned his right to a re-match against Tourangeau with a 6-3 victory in the semifinals.
In the race-to-9 finals that followed, Baker got a few more extra racks in than he’d been able to muster in the hot seat match, but they weren’t enough. Tourangeau took the final 9-5 and claimed the Memorial Weekend 9-Ball Championship title.
