KF Cues 9-Ball Tour / Holiday, FL
by Lea Andrews
On the weekend of June 27-28, the KF Cues 9-BallTour rolled through Hammerhead Billiards in Holiday, FL, and two men pushed through their fields to emerge as winners. Rich Schau came back from a late loss to take first in the 31-entrant, $1,000-added open event, while Mark Ritter went undefeated through the $700-added 52-entrant amateur field.
Schau’s single loss came in the hot seat match following a 7-4 win over Han Berber. His opponent, John Gabriel, having just brushed aside Richard Broumpton 7-3, was on a roll and moved easily through the hot seat match, sending Schau west 7-3, as well.
Big names were falling off the chart on the one-loss side as tournament director Tony “The Sniper” Crosby fell 7-6 to Josh Lewis, who went on to two more hill-hill victories over Neil Fujiwara and Josh Degler, who’d ousted last stop’s winner, Hunter Lombardo, 7-2, before succumbing to Broumpton 7-2. Meanwhile, Justin Hall had a string of 7-5 wins over Trevor Braymore, Donnie Mills – who’d knocked out Louis Altes 7-2 – and Berber before his own run-in with Broumpton put him in fourth with a score of 7-1.
Broumpton, though, couldn’t get past Schau, who was ready to exact his revenge on Gabriel. After warming up for the finals with a 7-5 win over Broumpton, Schau, who’d done more observing than shooting in his first match with Gabriel, made the final race to 9 the polar opposite, dominating from start to finish by jumping to a 4-0 and then 7-2 lead, and closing out the win at 9-4.
Ritter chose the domination route for his entire run through the amateur field, ultimately finding himself in the hot seat match after he and Bobby Moore had sent Jeff Mabry and Jason Richko west with identical 7-5 scores. Ritter continued the 7-5 trend and sent Moore to the one-loss semifinals, where he was greeted by Dan Lavoie. Lavoie, having suffered an early loss to local player Ivan Ambrosio, had gone steadily through the one-loss side with wins over last stop’s winner, Dan Whitten, Mike Delawder (shut-out), Richko, and a man known simply as “Grover,” to land in the one-loss semifinal match against Moore. Semipro Lavoie, spotting Moore two games in a race to 6, found himself far in the hole very quickly as Moore took three games to put himself on the hill. Lavoie hunkered down, though, finishing up 6-5 to earn his spot in the single-race final match.
With two break and runs and other good outs, Ritter, who was racing to 7, sprung to a 5-1 lead, but Lavoie, who was racing to 9, pushed back to get the score to 5-4. That was too close for Ritter, though, and he took the opportunities that came in the next two racks to earn his 7-4 victory.
Rich Schau came back from a late loss to take first in the 31-entrant, $1,000-added open event, while Mark Ritter went undefeated through the $700-added 52-entrant amateur field.
Open Results:
1st Rich Schau $700
2nd John Gabriel $500
3rd Richard Broumpton $300
4th Justin Hall $200
5th Josh Lewis $100
Han Berber
7th Josh Degler $75
Donnie Mills
Amateur Results:
1st Mark Ritter $520
2nd Dan Lavoie $400
3rd Bobby Moore$300
4th “Grover” $200
5th Jason Richko $100
Jeff Mabry
7th Mike Delawder $70
Ivan Ambrosio
9th Dan Whitten $50
Mark Wathen
Stephanie Mitchell
Albert Howe