Meglino, Burgos & Barnes win Sunshine State Predator ProAm 9-Ball events in Sanford, FL
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Julio Burgos
The three winners sound like a good name for a law firm. They are, in fact, the winners of a very busy weekend of tournaments, held under the auspices of the Sunshine State Predator ProAm Tour, run by Janene Phillips and Bobby Garza. The tour has been out of action for a couple of years because in addition to their duties at the helm of the ProAm tour, they run two (USA and BCA) amateur pool leagues. The multiple levels of responsibility involved with the three separate and different organizations just got out of hand and they backed away a bit from the independent operation, opting to maintain the amateur leagues, upon which a lot of area competitors depend for their regular dose of TAT (time at table). In a sense, they came out of an unofficial retirement to put together this past weekend’s (Sat., Aug. 2) three-tournament tour stop; Open 9-ball, Open 10-ball and a Ladies Open 9-Ball.
Designed originally to be a three-day event, plans changed when, in June, Garza (56) suffered a massive heart attack, commonly known as the Widowmaker; 100% blockage, that gives its occurrence such an ominous nickname.
“He flatlined for 15 minutes,” said Phillips, his personal and professional partner. “He is now eight weeks old and we are all thankful that he is still with us.”
At two weeks into a life after the Widowmaker, Garza was back playing in league events. He signed on to compete in this past weekend’s events (finishing out of the money) and yesterday, entered the ongoing Florida Open (Aug. 5-10) at the Caribe Royale in Orlando (the Sunshine State event was considered to be and called a Warm-Up to the Florida Open). Garza drew world-champion Eklent Kaci in the opening round and was defeated, along with 128 other competitors in the opening round. We suspect that with his newly-minted lease on life, Garza will have had a way to appreciate just being there and taking such a loss more ‘in stride’ than he may have eight weeks ago. But like his life, the Florida Open isn’t over yet.
All of which led to the compression of an originally-planned, three-day event on the Sunshine State Predator ProAm Tour into one. While that may seem counter-intuitive, intensifying a lot of activity into a single day, it should be noted that spreading it out doesn’t necessarily reduce the amount of work and any related stress, it just makes such work and related stress go on much longer.
So, with a thankful, community “You, go, bro!” shout out to Garza, let’s get down to business. The $3,000-added (total) for the events of the Sunshine State ProAm Tour’s latest stop drew 81 unique entrants (32 in 10-ball, 67 in 9-ball and 10 in the Ladies 9-ball) to Racks Billiards Sports Bar & Grill in Sanford, FL.
For all of the stress that preceded it, it was a welcome ‘return’ for Phillips and Garza.
“It was good to watch (Anthony) Meglino, (Trenton) White and Kennedy playing again,” said Phillips, with a heartfelt, genuine smile in her voice.
Anthony Meglino and Trenton White
Meglino and White were the winner and runner-up of the 10-ball event; Meglino going undefeated and White joining him in the hot seat match and final. Meglino set out on his trip to the winners’ circle with a shutout over Michael Clark and chalked up two 7-5 wins over Paul Song and Georgi Georgiev, drawing Justin Hall in one of the winners’ side semifinals. White, in the meantime, gave up a single rack to Sean King in his opener and then, like Meglino, recorded two 7-5 victories, over Julio Burgos (who had, by the time he played the match, already won the 9-ball tournament) and JJ Faul. White drew Lukas Fracasso-Verner in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Maintaining their similar-pattern ‘groove,’ Meglino downed Hall and White defeated Fracasso-Verner, both 7-2. Meglino gave up just one in the subsequent battle for the hot seat.
On the loss side, upon arrival, Hall and Fracasso-Verner defeated their first opponents and locked horns in the quarterfinal; Hall had downed David Jacobs, while Fracasso-Verner had eliminated Georgiev, both 7-5. Fracasso-Verner advanced another step with a 7-3 win over Hall in those quarterfinals. His two-match, loss-side winning streak came to an end when White joined and defeated him in the semifinal 7-3.
The semifinal victory added a little ‘juice’ to White’s game in the final, though not enough. He’d managed only a single rack in his hot seat battle versus Meglino, but dug deeper to come within three at the end of the extended race-to-9 final. Meglino claimed the 10-Ball title 9-3.
Barnes goes undefeated to claim Ladies title, Burgos comes from the loss side to win 9-ball
Ladies first . . . Jessica Barnes campaign for the 10-entrant Ladies title almost went sideways in the opening round, when Nicole Cuellar mounted a double-hill challenge. Barnes closed it out though, moving on to defeat Helene Caukin 7-4 and Laci Penton 7-5 to show up for the hot seat match.
She was joined by Alley Peters, who’d defeated Lisa Anderson 7-2 and Alexa Zima 7-1 to reach her. Barnes claimed the hot seat 7-5.
On the loss side, Zima drew Caukin, who followed her loss to Barnes with a bye and single victory; 5-1 over Patricia Salazar. It was Penton who had the misfortune to pick up Cuellar, who followed her loss to Barnes with five straight wins that put her into the finals. She defeated all of them 5-2; Lisa Anderson, Ashley Moore, the recently-arrived Penton, Caukin (who’d eliminated Zima 5-2 and then lost the quarterfinal) and finally, Alley Peters in the semifinals.
Nicole Cuellar and Jessica Barnes
Barnes put a stop to that run fairly quickly. She defeated Cuellar 9-2 in an hour and a half (according to the digitalpool time stamps), to claim the Ladies title.
Julio Burgos was the only competitor to claim one of the day’s titles by coming from the loss side. He did this as a member of the day’s largest field, necessitating 10 matches. With three more matches in 10-ball, which resulted in an overall 13-3 record on the day, he competed in more matches than any one in any of the three events.
Burgos was merrily rolling along through his first three matches, recording an aggregate score of 21-3 versus Manuel Paiva (0), Michael L. McGuire (1) and Cal Boll (7). In one of the winners’ side quarterfinals he ran into Tommy Kennedy, who’d gotten to him with a fairly typical aggregate score of 21-12, downing Robert McLaren (3), Ricardo (Joel) Rodriguez (5), and Lee Heuwagen (4). Burgos and Kennedy battled to double hill before sending Burgos to the loss side. Kennedy drew Lukas Fracasso-Verner in one of the winners’ side semifinals .
Meanwhile, from the opposite end of the bracket, Alex Bausch headed out on his trip to the hot seat match, arriving at his winners’ side semifinal with an aggregate score of 28-9 against Ameet Kukadia (0), Gary Andres Mayer (3), Trenton White (2) and Julio Estevez (4). Bausch picked up Chase Stumfoll in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Fracasso-Verner and Kennedy locked up in a double-hill fight that eventually sent Fracasso-Verner to the hot seat match. Bausch defeated Stumfoll 7-1 to join him. Fracasso-Verner shut Bausch out to claim the hot seat.
On the loss side, it was Stumfoll drawing Burgos, who’d followed his loss to Kennedy with a double-hill victory over Trenton White and backed it up with a 5-2 win over John Souders. Stumfoll put up a double-hill fight, as well, but it was Burgos advancing to the quarterfinals. He was joined by Kennedy, who’d defeated Julio Estevez 5-2.
In their rematch, Burgos put a stop to Kennedy’s single-match journey on the loss side 7-1 and then, eliminated Bausch 5-2 in the semifinals.
The regimen of matches by all of the players, who were literally jumping from one match to the next, switching often from 9-Ball to 10-Ball, took its toll in a lot of different ways. Burgos began his day in a 10-Ball match, sometime after 2 p.m. and switched to play his first 9-ball match shortly thereafter.
When the 9-ball final pitting Burgos against Fracasso-Verner began, he had yet to play his first loss-side match in 10-ball. It was a tough, just-shy of double-hill battle for the 9-ball title, with Burgos edging out in front to claim it in the end. Two and a half hours later, Burgos stepped back into the 10-ball arena and played his third match against Tommy Kennedy, who defeated him 7-2 to win their personal best-of-three battle 2-1.
TD Janene Phillips made mention of the fact that reducing the events to a single day led to the necessity of patience on the part of all the players as they moved from event to event and game to game in each of the two events. And they were cooperative about it.
“The players were very understanding and didn’t complain when they had to play back-to-back when doing both 9-ball & 10-ball,” she said. “They didn’t complain when they had to wait on other opponents, who were competing in the other event.”
She went on to thank the ownership and staff at Racks Billiards for their hospitality, along with title sponsor Predator Group, Kamui, The Cue Corner, No Quit Apparel, Dr. V’s Custom Shop, The Central Florida USA Pool League, and Lights Out Streaming (with Garza and Greg Anderson). She also thanked Rob McLaren for being the event’s assistant TD “who helped manage and run things smoothly.”
