Earl Strickland completed an undefeated run through the field to win the Joss NE 9-Ball Tour stop at Raxx Pool Room in West Hempstead, NY on November 23rd and 24th.
Strickland was just one of the early favorites in this event, with a field that included Mike Dechaine and Europe's Jayson Shaw. By the luck of the draw, Dechaine and Shaw faced off in the first round with Shaw scoring the win and Dechaine taking a very early trip to the left side of the board.
Back on the winners side, it was Strickland scoring a 9-6 win over Shaun Wilkie to capture the hot-seat on Sunday afternoon.
Wilkie made the journey to the one loss side, and found Dechaine waiting. Dechaine had won seven straight matches on the left side of the board and was not planning on settling for third place. Dechaine ran over WIlkie 9-2 to set up a match with Strickland in the finals.
Strickland came out strong in the first set of the finals and raced to a 6-1 lead. Dechaine is not known for crumbling under pressure though, and he came back to win seven straight games and held an 8-6 lead. That would be as close to the finish line as Dechaine would get, as Strickland won the next three racks for the 9-8 victory and first place.
The second place finish was enough to catapult Dechaine to the top of the Joss Tour Points List.
Sunday's second chance tournament saw Larry Ross beat Mike Andrews for the hot-seat and then degeat Joe Gibbons in the finals for an undefeated victory.
As is always the case on the Joss Tour, a beautiful $1500 custom engraved Joss Cue was raffled off, and the winner on this weekend was John Kalski.
The Joss NE 9-Ball Tour will now take a break for the holidays and return to action on February 8th at Sharpshooters Billiards in Amsterdam, NY.
