Friend Nabs First 8-Ball Win; Hunt Scores Second

By InsidePOOL Staff

David Hunt notched his second Planet Pool Amateur 8-Ball Tour victory o­n April 2-3, putting a stronghold o­n his number-one ranking, while Kathy Friend scored her first of the year.  The event was held at Champion Billiards Café in Shirlington, VA, with both brackets full of competitive players.

Hunt has already built a solid track record in 2005, winning the first ever 8-ball stop earlier in the year and coming in second at the second stop.  Hunt also had a flare for the dramatics during the event, coming out o­n top of two hill-hill thrillers against Alex Papanicolas and Ken Mason. 

After Hunt took the hot seat, he waited while Mason and local player Pat Carosi battled in out in the semifinals.  After Mason came through with a 3-2 win, he attempted to dethrone Hunt but to no avail.  Hunt showed no kink in his armor, taking first place for the second time in 2005. 

In the ladies' bracket, it was Friend who stormed out of the gate with three straight 4-0 wins to reach the hot seat against Tina Meraglio.  The match went down to the wire, but Friend pulled out the win 4-3. 

Meraglio took her game to the semifinals, where she faced 21-year-old Ellen Yu, but Meraglio barely flinched during the race-to-2 match.  With her win, she earned another shot at Friend in the finals, and she gave Friend a run for her money, as the two ladies matched o­ne another game for game until it was 3-all.  However, Friend scored wins in the final two games to take home the victory 5-3. 

Results:

1st David Hunt $440

2nd Ken Mason $290

3rd Pat Carosi $200

4th Wayne Edwards $120

5th Steve Luskey, Freddy Dominguez $90

Ladies' Results:

1st Kathy Friend $180

2nd Tina Meraglio $125

3rd Ellen Yu $85

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