Tennessee Man Reaches Music City Finals; Upsets Prevail Throughout

Tennessee Man Reaches Music City Finals; Upsets Prevail ThroughoutSteve Trinward, InsidePOOL MagazineThat young man from Tennessee is still alive and well, with one more hurdle to win the 17th Annual Music City 9-Ball Billiards Open. Jonathan "Hennessee" Pinegar has continued to impress a strong and competitive field as he wades through one top-ranked veteran after another. He will play David Gutierrez at 2:00 p.m. Sunday afternoon for the winners’ flight title. Gutierrez won his way to the showdown by besting previously unbeaten players Dave Matlock and Barry Emerson. On Saturday, Hennessee's targets were Donnie Pinson and Scotty Townsend, both of whom have been well-respected stickhandlers for a while now. Townsend was in fact one of the favorites to win it all in Nashville this year, and Hennessee knew he had his work cut out for him if he was going to keep his record spotless for the week.
In his first encounter, with Pinson, Pinegar withstood several comebacks and even trailed a couple of times. At 7-5, Pinson grazed the 4 on the way to a bank shot on the 2 ball, and after a brief rules discussion, Pinson handed Hennessee the cueball. Pinegar proceeded to run the table for the game. Then, with the help of a 9 ball drop on the break and a couple of near-misses by Pinson the rare times he got to leave his chair, Hennessee closed out the match 11-7.When Scotty Townsend stood in his path, Pinegar began by spotting him five of the first six games with a couple of near misses that left Townsend with wide-open holes to exploit. Townsend began to regain the sharp touch he had shown throughout the week. He ran a pair of racks and then dropped a 9 ball combo off the 2 to bring the score to 4-5 and then overcame an empty break with a finesse safety and another combo on the 9, this time off the 4 ball. They swapped the next few games before Hennessee ran three out of four to retake the lead. Then, in a key sequence, Townsend overhit the 2 ball into, and back out of, the side pocket, and Pinegar pocketed the rebound on his own shot, running the table for hill-8. on the final game, Pinegar had a strong break and a fairly routine trip through the table to close out the match and began to prepare for Gutierrez, who had just won at the next table over.In other winners’ bracket matches Saturday, an even younger Tennessean, Nick Hickerson, fell to Scotty Townsend 11-7. Hickerson had previously not only won the mini-tournament on Tuesday but had waded through a string of name players, including his last victim, Joe Dan Bilyeu. Townsend went on to play Hennessee and became another one of his victims.Barry Emerson, fresh off defeats of hometown Nashvillian Bobby Pickle and Tony Mougey, pushed Erman Bullard into the elimination bracket with an 11-2 smoking, bringing him face to face with David Gutierrez. Gutierrez proved too much for Emerson, with runs of three and four games, and staved off a late Emerson rally to close him out at 11-5. Gutierrez had gotten to that stage by besting Tony Allan, Sam Tush, Kendal Koch, and Dave Matlock.Meanwhile, on the one-loss side, one match of note pitted last year's winner, Shannon Daulton, against his runner-up from that tournament, Gabe Owen. Each of these young and gifted competitors had suffered one loss along the way and so was playing with their paychecks on the line on Saturday afternoon. Owen was coming off his close loss to Hennessee the night before, while Daulton had been living with no tomorrow since the second round and had just ousted Joe Montoya, another tourney favorite, 11-9 earlier in the afternoon. In a hard-fought battle, Owen eliminated the defending champ, 11-8. While Daulton was battling Montoya, Gabe Owen had been ousting local icon and longtime tour star Jimmie Reid, coming from "Caffeine free -- seven up," as Reid quipped when that condition occurred, to close him out 11-8. However, Owen's next obstacle, Erman Bullard, would prove too much for him, as he succumbed, by that same 11-8 margin, to the wily veteran. On the women's side, there were few surprises. Helena Thornfeldt defeated recent newlywed Cheryll Edwards Golden, as well as Joan Browning. Monica Webb toppled Donna Favors and Cheryl Livingston. Pam Treadway beat Rachael Abbink and Sarah Rousey. Toni Tucker defeated K K Williams and Paulette Spaulding. The matches conclude on Sunday with the open winners’ bracket showdown at 2:00 p.m. as the featured event of the day. The women's competition will occur in the morning and early afternoon.Visit InsidePOOL for the latest in the sport of billiards and pool.

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