The Joss NE 9-Ball Tour drew a field of 56 players to Snooker's Cafe & Billiards in Providence, RI over the weekend for the lastest stop on their tour. The field of players included such notables as Danny Basavich, Frankie Hernandez, Karen Corr, Joey Korsiak, Julie Kelly, Al Lapena, last event's winner Tom D'Alfonso and Joe Tucker.
The winners side came down to D'Alfonso and Tucker for the hot-seat. Alfonso was coming off an impressive win last week, while Tucker was showing that there was no rust in his game after a six-month layoff. Tucker came out on the right side of the 9-5 match and took the hot-seat.
On the one loss side, D'Alfonso quickly eliminated Tony Ruberto to earn another shot at Tucker in the finals.
In last week's double elimination finals, D'Alfonso held the hot-seat and lost the first set of the finals to Mike Zuglan before winning the final set for the touranment win. This week, D'Alfonso scored a dominating 9-4 win over Tucker in the first set of the finals and was within one match of a second straight win. Tucker made sure that didn't happen as he came out strong in the second set and raced to a 7-2 lead. D'Alfonso clawed back to 7-5. A safety on the 7-ball in the next game proved to be D'Alfonso's last shot as Tucker kicked the ball in and ran out that and the following rack for the 9-5 win.
Tucker earned $1700 for first place, while D'Alfonso pocketed $1230 for second. Ruberto and Dave Fernandez filled out the top four spots.
The Joss NE 9-Ball Tour will be at Diamond Eight Billiards in Latham, NY on December 3rd-4th for their next event.
Complete Payouts:
1st Joe Tucker $1700
2nd Tom D'Alfonso $1230
3rd Tony Ruberto $950
4th Dave Fernandez $700
5th/6th Al Lapena, Karen Corr $500
7th/8th Joey Korsiak, Danny Basavich $350
9th/12th Frankie Hernandez, Joe Dupuis, Mike Deshaine, Julie Kelly $200
13th/16th Chuck Altomare, Mike Yamauchi, Marty Herman, Rich Kravetz $100
Photo courtesy of Mitch Heydt
