Kieselat Parks in First at Garage Bar & Billards

by Tori Hilty

Pulling into first place at Garage Bar & Billiards, George Kieselat stood undefeated at the end of the August 28, 2004, tournament.  Facing a tough field of 43 other players who came for their part of the $4,300 prize fund, Kieselat faced his tougher challenger in 16-year-old Josh Marlow, who fought him for the hot seat and for first place.

Amidst motorcycles hanging from the walls and gas pumps sitting around the poolroom, Jeremy Seaman and Josh Ulridge met in the quarterfinal match.  Ulridge was in control the entire match and took the lead.  Seaman, not seeing a shot o­n the 1, pushed in the final match.  Ulridge came to the table, found a shot o­n the 1, and ran the rack to take the win 5-2.

The final two o­n the winners' side, Marlow and Kieselat, started the match for the hot seat by knotting the score at 2, but Kieselat soon got out to a 4-2 lead.  Continuing to lead, Kieselat reached 6 while his young adversary trailed at 3 and maintained control of the match until the 7-4 end.

Keeping control from the outset, Marlow maintained the lead by at least o­ne rack the entire semifinal match against Ulridge, finally winning the match 5-3.  Tournament director Tommy Kukulka commented that many players thought Marlow was much older than he actually is, believing him to be at least 18, because of his imposing height of over 6 foot.  Kukulka also said in reference to Marlow's amazing ability at 16, "He was the story of the day."

The semifinal-match win for Marlow set him up for another chance against Kieselat in the final match, where the more seasoned player shot out to a two or three game lead over Marlow.  Hanging in there and keeping it close, Marlow came back o­n him each time Kieselat got out to a lead.  Not finding an opportunity to close the final gap, Marlow was defeated when Kieselat took the last three racks he needed for the winning score of 11-8.

Results:

1st George Kieselat $1,820
2nd Josh Marlow $970
3rd Josh Ulridge $490
4th Jeremy Seaman $310
5th Ron Prime, Bobby Rezin $165
7th Tommy Kukulka, Tim Roberts $100
9th Ronnie Wiseman, J.J. Fuller, Brent Canine, Danny Barnes $50

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