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Jacoby Custom Cues Carolina Tour / Wilmington, NC

by Lea Andrews

Jeff Abernathy, who last won a Jacoby Custom Cues Carolina Tour stop in February, put another notch in his belt the weekend of July 11-12, going undefeated to take first place. The $1,000-added main event, which was competing with the Gem City Classic and the WPBA Satellite Tour for players, drew a small but strong field of 15 players to Break Time Billiards in Wilmington, NC.

Abernathy arrived in the hot seat match after sending Zach Wilson west 7-4. Challenging Abernathy for the hot seat was Larry Faulk, who’d edged past Chris Vollmar 7-6. There was no edging past Abernathy, though, and Faulk moved left 7-2.

On the one-loss side, Jay Calhoun came up short in his hill-hill match against Trey Greene, while David Tickle fell 7-4 to Sidney Champion and Peaches Fuller and Scott Crandall each fell 7-3 to Younger Chapman and Barry Irving, respectively. Chapman and Irving went on to their own decisive match, which Chapman took 7-2, while Champion knocked out Greene 7-3. Chapman then proceeded to welcome Wilson to the one-loss side with a hill-hill knockout, while Champion did the same to Vollmar, setting up the Chapman/Champion match, which also went hill-hill. It was Champion who went on to face Larry Faulk in what turned out to be his third hill-hill match—and win—in a row.

Having come off of those consecutive tough matches, Champion faced the toughest yet, and he held his own in the single race-to-9 finals for the first eight racks, at which point the score was tied at 4 apiece. It was at that same point that Abernathy turned it on and began pulling away. When Abernathy sunk the final 9 ball, the score was 9-6, and his weekend of superior play had culminated in his first-place finish.

Besides the main event, the tour also put on, as usual, several smaller events. In the 14-entrant early-bird tournament Friday, Larry Faulk took $140 for first with a 7-2 win over Younger Chapman. On Sunday, Terry Faulk earned $40 for her 9-6 win over Rachel Eliazar in the finals of the ladies’ tournament, while 15-year-old Taylor Hobbs earned $40 for his 9-5 win over Caleb Grissom in the finals of the juniors’ tournament. Also on Sunday, Jim Barthule, with his strong 9-1 win over Mayhew in the finals of the second-chance tournament, picked up $70, while Mayhew earned $30.

Results:
1st $1,000 Jeff Abernathy
2nd $500 Sidney Champion
3rd $175 Larry Faulk
4th $75 Zach Wilson