Steve Mack, Ryan Lineham, Lance Lisciotti, Brent Boemmels and Mike Mathieu (Ship The Cash)
Racks Billiards in Vernon, Ct was the place over the weekend of December 18th – 19th for the Lisciotti Cup 2021, a Mosconi Cup’ish team event to honor the memory of the late great Larry Lisciotti.
Larry’s son, Lance Lisciotti, returned as the reigning team captain and he took turns “drafting” players against challenging team captain Eric Tang, building what they each hoped would be winning five player team. While the event format was similar to Mosconi Cup in the idea of matches seeing teams, singles and doubles facing off for overall points, one big difference in this event from the Mosconi Cup was the inclusion of different games, with the Lisciotti Cup seeing competition in 8-Ball, 9-Ball and 10-Ball.
With team selections complete, Team Tang consisted of Lukas Fracasso-Verner, Matt Tetreault, Ryan Cullen, Alex Bausch and Tang. Team Lisciotti was made up of Ryan Lineham, Steve Mack, Brent Boemmels, Robert Piersa and Lisciotti. At the last minute, Team Lisciotti found their top pick, Piersa, would be unable to compete in the event. They quickly found Mike Mathieu ready to step in and play, and what a great decision that turned out to be.
The first match of the day was the team event and Team Lisciotti found themselves trailing 4-0 in the race to five format. In stepped Mathieu to get his team on the board at 4-1, and that was all his team needed to find their groove and win the next four racks to steal the first point of the event.
Mathieu then teamed up with Lineham to defeat Fracasso-Verner and Cullen for a 2-0 Team Lisciotti lead. The two teams traded the next three matches with Tetreault and Cullen winning singles matches for Team Tang, and Mack & Lisciotti winning a scotch doubles match.
The final match of the day was Mathieu & Boemmels teaming up against Fracasso-Verner & Tang. Team Tang led this match 4-0, and looked to be on their way to a match win and overall tie score to end day one. That was until Mathieu showed his stuff again. He rallied he and Boemmels to a 5-4 win and an overall 4-2 lead to close out the day.
Fracasso-Verner kicked off day two with a win over Lisciotti to get his team back within one at 4-3, but Lineham & Lisciotti scored a hill-hill win over Tetreault & Cullen to stretch the lead back to two at 5-3. Tang got a win over Mack and the deficit was one point again, before Mack & Boemmels earned a hill-hill victory over Bausch & Tang.
That double win left Team Lisciotti on the hill at 6-4 and it was only fitting that they brought in their anchor for the next match. Mathieu scored a 5-2 win over Bausch with an amazing two rail kick/carom to pocket the final 10-ball for his team.
You can check out the final shot in this video.
To no one’s surprise, Mathieu was named the unanimous MVP for the event.
The event was streamed online by Ship The Cash, and can be viewed on their Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/shipthecashpool/videos/
(l to r): S. Ahmed, A. Petruzzelli, M. Argentino, L. Lisciotti, J. Concepcion, and A. Gonzalez
One doesn’t toss out the word ‘dominate’ lightly, no matter what the circumstances, because as anyone familiar with pool will tell you, a wide score disparity doesn’t always reflect how close any given match may have been. That said, Mario Argentino and Lance Lisciotti went undefeated through a field of 39 teams of two, on-hand for the New England 9-Ball Series’ $500-added (8-Ball on the winners’ side and 9-Ball on the loss side) Summer Sizzler Partners Event, hosted by Yale Billiards in Wallingford, CT on Sunday, August 4. The victory encompassed six matches in all and over those six matches, the Argentino/Lisciotti partnership allowed a total of only six racks to be recorded against them, culminating in back-to-back shutouts in the hot seat match and finals.
Following an opening round bye, Argentino and Lisciotti, who would never compete in 9-Ball in this event, embarked on their arguably dominant performance giving up a single rack to their first two partnered opponents and then running into a pair of players in a winners’ side quarterfinal who brought them to the double hill brink of a loss – Ricardo Diaz and Beau Powers. Argentino/Lisciotti survived the scare and advanced to a winners’ side semifinal versus Tyler Boudreau and Tom D’Alfonso, who were the closest matched competitors in terms of Fargo Rates that the two faced all weekend. Argentino/Lisciotti came to the tables with a 587 (combined, averaged) Fargo Rate. Boudreau/D’Alfonso were three points away at 584. In the other winners’ side semifinal, Jose Concepcion and Angel Gonzalez met up with Jay Cunningham and Jordan Stevens.
Argentino/Lisciotti gave up their sixth (and unbeknownst to the assembled, their final) rack, defeating Boudreau/D’Alfonso 4-1. Concepcion/Gonzalez joined them in the hot seat match following a 3-2 win over Cunningham/Stevens. In what was one of only two handicapped matches among the event’s final 14 matches, Argentino/Lisciotti shut the Concepcion/Gonzalez team out (the Concepcion/Gonzalez team began the match with a single ‘bead on the wire’ in a race to 4) and sat in the hot seat, awaiting their return.
On the loss side, Boudreau/Alfonso picked up Jason D’Angelo and Joey Dupuis, who’d recently defeated the Diaz/Powers duo that had double-hill challenged Argentino/Lisciotti in the 4th winners’ side round. D’Angelo/Dupuis double-hill challenged and eliminated them, before advancing to defeat Gene Hunt and Ruben Sepulveda 4-1 to pick up Boudreau/D’Alfonso. Cunningham/Stevens drew Shiekh Ahmed and Anthony Petruzzelli, who’d eliminated Adam Blair and Josh Caesar 3-1 and survived a double hill match against Bobby and Rebecca Hilton.
In the first of the money rounds, Ahmed/Petruzzelli handed Cunningham/Stevens their second straight loss 3-1 and were joined in the quarterfinal match by Boudreau/D’Alfonso, who’d survived a double hill battle against D’Angelo/Dupuis. Another double hill fight ensued in those quarterfinals, with Ahmed/Petruzzelli eventually advancing to the semifinals over Boudreau/D’Alfonso.
Concepcion/Gonzalez, no doubt eager for a second shot against the hot seat’s Argentino/Lisciotti team, gave up only a single rack to Ahmed/Petruzzelli in the semifinals and got that chance. Argentino/Lisciotti, though, doubled down on the dominance angle, shutting Concepcion/Gonzalez out in the second handicapped match of the event’s final 14 and claiming the Summer Sizzler Partners title.
Tour director Marc Dionne thanked the ownership and staff at Yale Billiards, as well as sponsors Predator Cues, USAPL New England, Fargo Rate, Bert Kinister, AZBilliards, Inside English, Professor Q-ball’s National Pool and 3-Cushion News, Delta 13 Racks, MJS Construction, Bob Campbell with Lease Fundings, Master Billiards and OTLVISE Billiard Mechanics of America. The next stop on the New England 9-Ball Series, scheduled for this weekend (August 11), will be hosted by Snooker’s in Providence, RI.
(l to r): Anthony Petruzelli, Mike Dechaine & Lukas Fracasso-Verner
In the end, it was a battle of generations. Though Mike Dechaine hasn’t got enough years on his resume to be considered a member of any ‘older’ generation (in the vein of Earl Strickland, Nick Varner, or Shannon Daulton, as examples), he has certainly earned the title of veteran player. At 16, Lukas Fracasso-Verner is still young enough to be considered a ‘Junior,’ although he’s been competing against fellow juniors, veterans and the Pros for over three years now.
The two met in the finals of the $2,000-added New England 9-Ball Series Players’ Championships. Held on the weekend of March 17-18, the event drew 56 entrants to Yale Billiards in Wallingford, CT. To the surprise of many, although not, apparently, to Dechaine himself, Mike lost his opening match to Lance Lisciotti. This launched a 10-match, loss-side winning streak for Dechaine that allowed him to challenge Fracasso-Verner in the finals. Dechaine took the opening set of the true double elimination final, before he (with a three-hour drive ahead of him) and Fracasso-Verner (more or less in his own backyard), both at that stage with a single loss, opted out of a final match and split the top two prizes.
Dechaine’s opening round loss was a 5-6 victory for Lisciotti (as a Pro player, Dechaine was racing to 10). Asked if the loss came as a bit of surprise to him, Dechaine said that it hadn’t.
“No,” he said. “Lisciotti is capable of playing well, and he played well.”
Later in the tournament, Dechaine had the opportunity for a re-match, and the results were quite different. It should also be noted that in Dechaine’s 10-match, loss-side run, he won just over 89% of the games he played, with an aggregate score of 110-13.
As Dechaine began work on the loss side, Fracasso-Verner (an A player) and Anthony Petruzelli (C+) were advancing through their respective upper- and lower-bracket fields for a meetup in the hot seat match. Verner won four to meet Ryan Urso (a B Player) in one winners’ side semifinal, while Petruzelli won his four to face fellow C+ player, Jimmy Gonzalez in the other one. Fracasso-Verner and Petruzelli gave up only two racks between them (one each, to Urso and Gonzalez) to move into the hot seat match. Fracasso-Verner was even stingier in the winners’ side final, giving up none at all to sit in the hot seat.
Meanwhile, back at the (loss-side) ranch, Dechaine was mowin’ ‘em down, one by one. Opening loss-side wins of 10-1, 11-1, and 11-3 brought him into the money rounds, where he defeated Bobby Hilton by shutting him out and then, in his re-match against Lisciotti, sent him home 10-2. This set him up to face Urso, coming over from the winners’ side semifinal. Gonzalez’ first opponent on the loss side was Jack Cooper, who’d shut out Ralph Caton in the first money round, and then survived a double hill fight against Darryl Helm (5-5; Helm, as a C+, racing to 6) to reach Gonzalez.
Dechaine and Cooper handed Urso and Gonzalez their second straight loss. With Urso racing to 4, Dechaine eliminated him 11-1. Cooper gave up only one to Gonzalez in a 5-1 victory (Gonzalez racing to 6). Dechaine took the quarterfinal match 13-1 over Cooper, and completed his loss-side run with a 12-2 victory over Petruzelli in the semifinals.
The final match actually dropped Dechaine’s winning-game percentage down a notch, from its 89.4% after the semifinals to 88% at the end of the first double-elimination set. Dechaine won it 10-2, and then, in consultation with Fracasso-Verner, opted out of trying to make it two in a row.
Tour director Marc Dionne thanked the ownership and staff at Yale Billiards, as well as sponsors Ozone Billiards, Molinari, Bert Kinister, AZBilliards, Inside English, Professor Q-Ball’s National and 3-Cushion News, Delta 13 Racks, MJS Construction, Bob Campbell, Championship Cloth, and OTLVISE Billiard Mechanics of America. The next stop on the New England 9-Ball Series (#20), scheduled for the weekend of March 24-25, will be a $500-added, 8-Ball event, to be hosted by Legends Billiards, in Auburn, ME.
On the weekend of February 11-12, 2012 the East Coast Pool Tour hosted the 7th annual Larry Lisciotti Memorial at Branford Cue and brew in Branford CT. The $500 added event drew 46 players to the even race to 7 two day tournament.
On the A/B side of the bracket saw Jeremy Sossei cruising to the finals after a close first round hill hill match with Chuck Altomare. After that, Jeremy beat Tommy Seminaro Jr. 7-2, Brent Boemmels 7-0 and then Clint Thompson 7-1 to secure his spot in the hot seat match.
The C/D side of the Bracket saw a battle of hill hill matches. It was Eric Graven (C+) that fought his way to the hot seat match against Jeremy. Eric had wins over Dave Corley, Mike Zingarella, and Jeff Geremia
The hot seat match saw Jeremy Sossei take complete control from the start winning 7-1 against Eric Graven.
On the loser side of the bracket it was Steve Mack (A) coming back after losing his first match to Brent Boemmels 7-6, winning 9 matches in a row to play Jeremy in the finals. On his way back to the finals he beat Tom Torres, Rob Persia, John Ortiz, Phil Davis, Brent Boemmels, Lance Lisciotti 7-5, Clint Thompson 7-4, Dave Corley 7-5 Eric Graven 7-3.
Throughout the tournament Jeremy Sossei seemed to be the player to beat who looked to be playing perfect pool. He proved his point in the finals cruising to a 7-0 victory break and running 4 racks in the set. Jeremy pocketed $650 for first place while Mack settled with $440 for second place.
The break contest saw Damien Provost winning the $800 Greg Kucharski custom cue that was generously donated to the tournament.
