Ussery Ices the Jacoby Field
Jacoby Custom Cues Carolina Tour / Burlington, NC
by Lea Andrews
Is there a better way to spend an icy, snowy, wintry weekend than in the heat of competition? The four men who braved conditions hazardous enough to push North Carolina into a state of emergency didn’t think so, and BJ Ussery went undefeated at Family Billiards in Burlington, NC, the weekend of January 30-31 to get a huge chunk of the guaranteed $1,000-added prize fund: the guaranteed $1,000 for first place.
After getting past recent winner Tony Morrison 7-4, Ussery was in the hot seat match against Derek Davis, who’d breezed past Jason Carter 7-2. But Davis came out on the wrong end of his 7-2 match against Ussery, and he moved west. On the other side of the bracket, Morrison shut out Carter to reach the semifinals against Davis, whom he held to three games to get his rematch with Ussery.
In the single race-to-11 finals, Ussery got out to a 2-0 lead, and a break and run put him at 3-0. Morrison rallied a bit, taking the next rack and breaking and running the one after to make it 3-2, but Ussery took five straight to make it 7-2. The two went back and forth a bit to get the score to 9-6, but from there, Ussery took charge, finishing up his weekend of undefeated play with a break and run and earning his first Jacoby win this season 11-6.
After getting past recent winner Tony Morrison 7-4, Ussery was in the hot seat match against Derek Davis, who’d breezed past Jason Carter 7-2.
In the early bird tournament Friday night, Morrison took care of Chris Turner 7-5 in the finals, and on Saturday, Devon Gibson topped the juniors’ division, while Gladys Ratliff topped the ladies’, and as a bonus, had her ticket drawn in the raffle for the Jacoby cue. The second chance event on Sunday went to Derek Davis, and the break and run contest will be at $75 per ball at the next event.
Results:
1st BJ Ussery $1,000
2nd Tony Morrison $200