Mike Zuglan, Josh Friedberg , Bucky Souvanthong and Snookers Owner Steve Goulding
Road partners Josh Friedberg and Holden Chin teamed up for first place finishes in the open and second chance event at the Joss NE 9-Ball Tour’s final regular season stop June 2nd - 3rd at Snookers Billiards in Providence, RI.
Friedberg survived hill-hill matches against Ben Savoie and Kerry McAuliffe in his first two matches and didn’t really have any non-stressful wins as his 9-5 win over Alex Morin on Sunday morning was his largest margin of victory. It was another close one for the hot-seat, where he defeated Bill Cote 9-7.
On the one loss side, Bucky Souvanthong was making up for his early loss to Joe Darigis. Souvanthong won nine straight matches, including a 7-2 victory over Darigis in the final four. Souvanthong then went on to defeat Cote 7-3 in the semi-final match.
The finals would go one set with Friedberg scoring a 9-6 win over Souvanthong for his first Joss Tour win.
After back to back hill-hill losses for Holden Chin in the main event, he was one of the fourteen players who came back on Sunday to compete in the second chance tournament. After an opening round win over Andrew Griffin, Chin dropped a hill-hill match to Jared Demalia. That would be the last time Chin would taste defeat in this event though, as he won five straight on the left side and then double dipped Francisco Cabral in the finals.
While it was Friedberg with the win in the main event, he gave all the credit to Chin. “When it comes to this game, Holden is the absolute greatest teacher. I would never ever have even come close to winning without his help.” he said. “ I think there were players there that were better than me. That had more skill and more experience than I did. (…) I just kept my head down and tried to remember all the things that Holden had taught me along the way.”
This event was the final regular season stop on the 2017 - 2018 season. Next up for the tour is the Turning Stone Classic XXX on August 23th - 26th at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino in Verona, NY.
