Bucky Souvanthong, Sharpshooters Manager Kayla Riccio and Qais Kolee
There’s a new sheriff on the Joss NE 9-Ball Tour, and his name is Qais Kolee.
The tour returned from it’s midseason break on February 22nd – 23rd with the Northeast 9-Ball Open XXXII at Sharpshooters Billiards and Sports Pub in Amsterdam, NY with a field of 30 players, and the two players who drew the most attention were Jeremy Sossei and Bucky Souvanthong. Between them, they have 11 tour stop wins over the last year, and they both backed up their early favorite status with undefeated Saturdays.
Sossei kicked off his Sunday with a 9-3 win over Ron Casanzio, while Souvanthing was sending Dwight Dixon to the one loss side 9-5. Souvanthong then beat Sossei 9-6 to earn his place in the hot-seat match. The other half of the winners side saw Kolee with a 9-6 win over Greg Antonakos, followed up by a 9-7 win over Sean Zeng.
Sossei rode the one loss side to the semi-final rematch with Souvanthong, but came up short again, dropping the match 7-4. That setup Souvanthong with a rematch against Kolee in the finals.
The two players came into the finals with very different looking resumes. Souvanthong had three main event tour stop wins, while Kolee had only experienced the winner’s circle in one second chance event from last November. Those resumes didn’t matter though, as Kolee scored a 9-4 win over Souvanthong in the first set of the finals for his first main event tour stop win.
The second chance event on Sunday saw Geoff Montgomery come out ahead of 18 other players for first place. He defeated Willie Oney for the hot-seat 3-2 and then beat Brian Tierney by that same 3-2 score in the first set of the finals.
The Joss NE 9-Ball Tour will be at Snookers Sports Billiards Bar & Grill in Providence RI on March 7th – 8th for their next stop, the 11th NE Pool & Billiard Hall of Fame 9-Ball Open where David Wright, Chris Leal, Michael Rinella, Jay Stevens, Cleiton Rocha, Pete Genovese and Ivan Lee will all be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
