Aces for Archer at Jay Swanson Memorial
Jay Swanson Memorial Tournament / Hollywood, CA
by InsidePOOL Staff
After winnowing the field from 182 billiard players to 1, Johnny Archer won the Jay Swanson Memorial Tournament, held February 9-10 at Hollywood Billiards in Hollywood, CA. With a rich $13,620 prize fund, this event attracted some of the top players in the game.
Held annually in honor of Jay Swanson, a professional player who passed away in 1996, this is the twelfth installment of this event. It began in San Diego at College Billiards and has since immigrated to Hollywood.
Down to the final four, Johnny Archer and Dave “The Wave” Hemmah, house pro at neighboring Hard Times Billiards in Bellflower, CA, met to battle for the hot seat. Though Archer was behind almost the entire match, at the end he was able to come through and send Hemmah to the one-loss side with an 8-6 victory.
“Johnny’s been winning his matches pretty easily,” said tournament director Jay Helfert about the Player of the Decade for the 1990s.
Phoenix action man Scott “The Freezer” Frost and Oscar Dominguez matched up in the quarterfinal match. Dominguez had suffered his first loss to Archer 8-2 earlier in the tournament. Against Frost he fared slightly better but went home with a 7-4 loss.
Hemmah defeated Frost 7-5 to advance to the final match. Up 5-1, Frost missed the 7 ball, and Hemmah won the next six racks in a row, never giving Frost another chance.
Archer took the lead in the finals, and though Hemmah stuck with him for the first half of the extended race to 11, he fell behind. From a lead of 6-5, Archer cruised to a 9-6 lead before finally crossing the finish line to win 11-7.
Results:
1st Johnny Archer
2nd Dave Hemmah
3rd Scott Frost
4th Oscar Dominguez
5th Frank Nordmann
Don Nemitz
7th Max Eberle
Mark Haddad
9th Ernesto Dominguez
Damian Alishan
Dan Wallace
Chris Wedekind