Mike Davis and Nathan Childress
Hairfield, also undefeated, claims Ladies Title
The ongoing extension of a long career at the tables, combined with the promising beginning of a career just underway, made for a pool-interesting weekend in Newport News, VA this past weekend (March 30-31).
Last year, Mike Davis, Jr. claimed his best recorded earnings year since 2011. His best recorded earnings year, overall, was five years before that (2006), when he cashed in 31 events, winning six of them, five of them on the Northeast corridor’s Blaze Tour; the sixth was his victory in the Carolina Open’s One Pocket Division that year. He has enough state titles from a combination of Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas to decorate more than just a few fireplace mantels and this past weekend, Davis took home another one, going undefeated to claim the Steele Blue Tournament’s (SBT) $1,500-added VA State Bar Box 9-Ball Championships that drew 58 entrants to Peninsula Billiards in Newport News.
From the opposite end of the career-length spectrum, junior competitor Courtney Hairfield, who was born in February of Mike Davis’ best recorded earnings year, went undefeated in the $500-added Ladies event, which drew 25 entrants. It was her second straight, regional tour title, having won a stop on the Tiger Pool Tour last weekend (March 30-31) and only her third (recorded) cash finish, overall. She had finished as runner-up to Iris Cabatit in the first stop on the Tiger Pool Tour’s 2024 season back in January and then defeated her in the finals of that tour’s second stop.
The two winners were not alone in their representation of both long-standing and newly-minted careers at the tables. The Open event, in addition to Davis, featured a good share of mid-Atlantic, pool ‘rock stars,’ like Chris Bruner, Nilbert Lim, RJ Carmona, Eric Moore, Paul Oh, and Jimmy Bird (who won the Open event of the Tiger Pool Tour’s 2024 season in January), to name a few. It also featured a contingent of ‘recently graduated from junior status’ competitors like runner-up Joey Tate, Brent Worth, Garrett Vaughan and Nathan Childress, who won seven on the loss side to meet Davis in the finals.
On his path to the winners’ circle, Davis ran into a few of his mid-Atlantic compatriots, including Chris Bruner in a winners’ side quarterfinal that went double hill and Nilbert Lim who battled him to within a game of double hill (9-7) in the subsequent winners’ side semifinal that put Davis into the hot seat match. Jaime Gonzalez, in the meantime, got by Rob Carter in a winners’ side quarterfinal and Jimmy Bird in the other winners’ side semifinal, both 9-5, to join Davis in the hot seat match. Davis grabbed the seat with a 9-4 win over Gonzalez.
Over on the loss side, having been sent there by RJ Carmona in the second round (6-9), Childress had to run the gauntlet through every one of the aforementioned mid-Atlantic pool ‘rock stars,’ beginning with (in order) Eric Moore (4th round, 7-4), Paul Oh (7-5) and Chris Bruner 7-4 to pick up Jimmy Bird. Lim came over and drew Rob Carter, who lost a winners’ side quarterfinal to Gonzalez and defeated David Hairfield 7-4 and eliminated Joey Tate in a double-hill match.
Childress downed Bird 7-3 and was joined in the quarterfinals by Lim, who’d allowed Carter only a single rack in their match. Childress continued to bank momentum as he downed Lim in the quarterfinals 7-3 and Gonzalez 7-2 in the semifinals.
That momentum came to an abrupt halt in the finals, proving playwright David Mamet’s contention that “Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance.” In a race to 11, the older Davis secured the title by giving up only two racks to the youthful and exuberant younger competitor, Childress.
Courtney Hairfield
Hairfield and Wyatt battle twice to claim Ladies title
Courtney Hairfield’s path to the winners’ circle, after an opening-round bye, went through two 6-3 wins, over Sandy Breen-Bonilla and tour director Diane Steele before running into Charlisse Mullen in one of the winners’ side semifinals. Wyatt’s trip to the other winners’ side semifinal went through Amanda Mann (1), Jackie Atwood Catlett (4) and Jaydn Bird (1) to draw Dona Sellman in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Mullen put up a double-hill fight in her match versus Hairfield, but Hairfield got the last ‘word’ in on the subject and advanced to the hot seat match. Wyatt joined her after a (presumably) much less stressful 6-1 victory over Sellman. Hairfield had to contend with a second straight, double-hill match, battling for the hot seat. She won it and began a wait for Wyatt to conclude her semifinal, second match against Sellman.
Sellman had come to the loss side and drawn Steele, who’d followed her winners’ side quarterfinal loss to Hairfield with wins over Kelly Cox, double hill, and Catlett 5-3. Mullen drew local female veteran, Liz Taylor, who lost a winners’ side, second-round battle against Lisa Watson 6-3 to mount a four-match, loss-side winning streak, which might have resulted in an older/younger battle in the finals, but didn’t. Taylor had survived a double-hill challenge in her second loss-side match against Bert Flores, but gave up only one other rack, to Maria Beckner, in the match that sent Taylor to face Mullen.
Sellman downed Steele 5-1, as Mullen battled to put an end to Taylor’s loss-side streak, doing so double hill. Sellman then gave up another (just) one to Mullen in the quarterfinals, only to have Wyatt give up only two to her in the semifinals. In an extended race to 8, Hairfield won her second straight regional tour title in an 8-5 effort in her second effort against Wyatt.
0 comments