Angelo Innes scored his first ever Joss NE 9-Ball Tour victory over the weekend of April 14th and 15th at the NE 9-Ball Open XXV held at the Golden Cue in Albany, NY.
Innes took the direct route through the field of 44 other players and was sitting in the hot-seat undefeated after a close 9-7 win over Chance Chin in the winners side finals.
Chin then dropped a 9-5 match to Jeremy Sossei on the one loss side, and was forced to settle for third place.
Sossei had been sent to the left side on Saturday by tour director Mike Zuglan, and had battled back all day Sunday to earn his place in the finals against Innes. On paper, Sossei may have been the match favorite, and he did reach the hill first in the first set of the finals. Innes quickly joined Sossei on the hill at 8-8 and broke the rack for the case game. In what could have been a perfect Hollywood ending, Innes made a ball and saw a 1-9 carom line up for him. One shot later, Innes had earned his first Joss tour victory.
Innes took home $1000 for first, while Sossei pocketed $730 for second.
The second chance event on Sunday drew 22 players fighting it out for $940 in prize money.
That event saw Paul Rozonewski take the hot-seat with a 3-1 win over Bill Cote.
Cote then came back strong and scored a 3-0 win over Bud Robideau to earn another shot at Rozonewski in the finals.
Cote kept his strong play going and defeated Rozonewski 3-0 in the first set of the finals, but fell short as Rozonewski won the final set 3-1.
Rozonewski earned $340 for first and Cote settled for $220 in second place prize money.
The Joss NE 9-Ball Tour will take the rest of April and May off and be back in action June 9th-10th at Snookers in Providence, RI. After that event, the tour will head to Verona New York for the Turning Stone Classic XIX. Mike Zuglan still urges all players to get their entries for the Turning Stone event as it is filling fast. Players can call Zuglan at 518-356-7163.
