Country Club USA Billiards in Chelmsford, Mass hosted the New England 9-Ball Series July 8-9. A strong regional field of 33 players participated in the race to 7 double elimiation tourney. Some of the notables that played were Jamie Rios, Walter Bryksa, Paul Tocci, Kerry Mcalife, Philip Stevens, and John Paul Grimes.
The hot seat march saw Kerry Mcalife vs. Philip Stevens. It was an extremely tight match going hill-hill. However Mcalife made two errors that inevitably caused the match. On the last game, Mcalife broke, made a ball and got shape on the one ball. He had a relatively easy out and he made a shooting error that cost him the set 7-6.
Mcalife now faced Paul Tocci on the one-loss side to see who advanced to the finals and who would go home in 3rd. This too was a grueling match, going see-sawing the first 10 games. However Tocci prevailed and pulled away and won the last two games to head to meet with Stevens.
Initially Tocci jumped out of the gate like a thoroughbred from Pimlico leading Stevens 6-2. However, not content with situation, Stevens fough back with tied Tocci up 6-6 in a race to 10. Tocci must have felt like he was just hit with whiplash when Stevens then took the next two quickly making the score 8-6. Tocci was able to stem the hemorage that in the match to fight back and bring it to 8-8. On critical game 17, Stevens, while shooting on the 8-ball, drew whitey into the side pocket giving Tocci ball in hand on the nine. However, undeterred Stevens won the next two to again come back from behind to take the win.
Complete Payouts:
1st Philip Stevens $500.00
2nd Paul Tocci $250.00
3rd Kerry Mcalife $150.00
4th Walter Bryksa $80.00
5th Visal Taylor $60.00 / Jamie Rios $60.00
7th John Paul Grimes $45.00 / Mark Jones 8th $45.00
