Brucato and Carlson share Western New York Tour stop event title

 

At 3:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, March 10 (officially, 4:30 a.m., DST), tour director Nick Brucato and Dave Carlson, who'd faced each other off and on a number of times over the past few years decided that they'd had enough. Brucato had won their earlier match, which had left him in the hot seat of the March 9 stop on the Western New York Tour, so they opted out of a final match, and became co-champions. The $1,000-added event, initially divided into separate, upper and lower handicapped brackets, drew 34 entrants to Camelot Billiards in Rochester, NY.

They met first, once Brucato had survived an upper bracket, double hill match against Ron Casanzio, and Carlson had defeated Sean Zen 5-2 in the lower bracket semifinal. Brucato then 
got into the hot seat with the 7-3 win that would prove to be his last.

Casanzio and Zen moved west into the event's first money round, as the upper and lower brackets became one. Casanzio faced Marco Cam, who'd defeated Mark Hatch 5-3, and given up only a single rack to Dave Grau. Zen picked up Kirk Foley, who'd won two straight double hill matches against Cory Pane and Jim Pulaski. Casanzio downed Cam 5-3 and was met in the quarterfinals by Foley, who'd handed Zen his second straight loss 3-1.

Casanzio eliminated Foley 6-2, and then, in the semi/final match of the event, was defeated by Carlson 6-3. At that point, with Brucato undefeated in the hot seat, he and Carlson mutually agreed to share the event title and top prizes.