The Joss NE 9-Ball Tour travelled to Utica, NY for its
12th stop of the season at Utica Billiards on the Boulevard
on March 11th – 12th, where Jeremy Sossei scored his
second consecutive tour title.
Sossei advanced through a field of 59 players, with an
undefeated run on Saturday. To no one’s surprise,
Sossei was joined in the final four undefeated players by
the top 3 players on the tour points list, Ron Casanzio,
Ray McNamara and Bucky Souvanthong.
Sossei defeated Casanzio in his first Sunday morning match
9-6, while Souvanthong upended McNamara 9-4. Souvanthong
then defeated Sossei for the hot-seat in a hill-hill match.
On the one loss side, the story was Bruce Carroll. Carroll
had lost his first match of the event to Nick Coppola, but
had bounced back with nine straight match wins on the left
side of the board. After a hill-hill win over McNamara,
Carroll was finally stopped by Casanzio 7-1, and had to
settle for 4th place.
The semi-final match was a repeat of their match earlier
in the day, and Casanzio still didn’t have an answer
as to how to beat Sossei. The rematch went hill-hill, before
Sossei pocketed the final ball.
While Casanzio had not been able to avenge his loss to
Sossei, Sossei was able to avenge his earlier loss, as he
defeated Souvanthong in the first set of the finals 9-7.
The second set was a 7-0 whitewash, with Sossei scoring
the win and earning his second straight tour title.
Sunday’s second chance tournament saw Mehdi Bahloul
drop his second match of the day to Tito Ortiz, before coming
back for a nine match winning streak of his own. Bahloul
defeated Nate Marshall in the double elimination finals
3-1 and 3-0, for his first Joss Tour second chance event
win.
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