Nevel Creams Billiard Competition
Great Southern Billiard Tour / Fayetteville, NC
by Rick Davis
The Great Southern Billiards Tour swept into King Street Billiards the weekend of February 23-24, where Larry “The Truth” Nevel kept a stranglehold on the 45-player field all weekend before finally taking the title after giving an exhibition in the finals. King Street Billiards hosted the double-elimination 9-ball event.
Late action on the winners’ side had Robert Ray defeat Jared McGee 9-6 then send Walt Bolden west to earn a spot in the hot seat match. Nearby, Nevel blazed past Brandon Pureza 9-3 then defeated Phillip Britt to lock horns against Ray. The fight for the hot seat started even, but Nevel got his game rolling much sooner and quickly took the match 9-5 to become king of the hill.
On the one-loss side tournament director Shannon Daulton was working on a comeback as he ousted Greg Little then McGee and finally slipped past Britt double-hill to reach the quarterfinals. On the other half of the chart Pureza was inching his way through the rounds by knocking out Wendell Thompkins then Bolden 9-5 to catch up with Daulton.
In the quarterfinals, Daulton kept an edge over Pureza the entire match until dispensing with him 9-5 but then hit a brick wall in the semifinals when Ray ousted Daulton just shy of double-hill, 9-7. That left only one match to play as the now-well-rested Nevel defending against Ray for the second time. What was thought to be a tight match at first quickly turned into a shooting exhibition by Nevel, who gave Ray all of about three shots the entire match before closing things out 9-0 with a very loud thud to be heard across the pool room. Once again “The Truth” had prevailed as Nevel added another win to his impressive resume.
Results:
1st Larry Nevel
2nd Robert Ray
3rd Shannon Daulton
4th Brandon Pureza
5th Phillip Britt
Walt Bolden