pechauer tour
Atwell and Abenojar: Tough act to follow
by carrisa biggs
City
Lights Billiards, Tacoma, WA – November 27-28 – The third annual
Pechauer Stop of 2004-2005 drew 75 of the West Coast’s top players
to compete for more than $4000 in prize money. Clark Smith and Andrea Saenz-Maes
of City Lights Billiards worked tirelessly putting together the details of
the event; then Steve Lingelbach of On The Wire, the
promoter of the Pechauer West Coast Tour, handled the execution of the event.
The hours were long, but the staff at City Lights is renowned for taking
such
good care of the players.
Some of the best players were eliminated uncharacteristically early. Rich
Geiler went out in two with losses to Tinsley Johnson and Matt Nelson; John
Horsfall
and Dan Louie went
out in three! LeRoy Dorsey really came on in this event, finishing fifth
and delivering blows to a whole slue of contenders including Brady Gollan,
Mike
Zimmerman, Mike Stevens and Alan Ima, among others. Hopefully he will pack
that punch in Reno this year! Creigh Dumo is another player who, if not given
the respect he is due, will give a guy more than he can handle on the pool
table! He did that very thing to both John Horsfall and Dan Louie. Then there
were those entrants who were lucky enough to play one of the players who
were still at home getting their beauty rest.
Sunday brought back the final 16 players, all in the money. The real story is the dynamic duo of Glenn Atwell and Raul Abenojar who came in 1st and 2nd in the stop at Cadillac Ranch. They managed to repeat in this tournament and will likely be tough to catch in points if they continue to participate regularly in events. Raul played Glenn for the point while the one-loss bracket duked it out on the backside. Dorsey dropped ‘em like flies until he came up against Saud Alabdulrazaq from Spokane, WA. Saud ended LeRoy’s streak by a score of 9-5. Brady Gollan dominated the upper half of the backside until he faced fellow countryman Mike Vidas. In an all out battle to move on, it was Vidas who scored the extra couple games to take a stab at Raul, who had fell to Glenn on the point. The semi-finals proved to be one of the most exciting matches of the event. In a hill-hill showdown, Raul snuck by “The Kid” to have his shot at revenge against Glenn. It would appear that Glenn Atwell is the only player that Raul Abenojar cannot beat. Raul has faced Glenn several times in the past two months, and just can’t seem to close the deal. Both players were exhausted in the finals, and after gaining a significant lead, Raul wheedled off as many games as he had the energy to muster but fell to 2 games shy with a final score of 13-11.
The next Pechauer stop which promises to deliver lots of action and excitement at Hard Times Billiards in Los Angeles, CA January 1st and 2nd. This should be a really fun event with football and pool and who knows what else! We hope to see you there!
Sunday brought back the final 16 players, all in the money. The real story is the dynamic duo of Glenn Atwell and Raul Abenojar who came in 1st and 2nd in the stop at Cadillac Ranch. They managed to repeat in this tournament and will likely be tough to catch in points if they continue to participate regularly in events. Raul played Glenn for the point while the one-loss bracket duked it out on the backside. Dorsey dropped ‘em like flies until he came up against Saud Alabdulrazaq from Spokane, WA. Saud ended LeRoy’s streak by a score of 9-5. Brady Gollan dominated the upper half of the backside until he faced fellow countryman Mike Vidas. In an all out battle to move on, it was Vidas who scored the extra couple games to take a stab at Raul, who had fell to Glenn on the point. The semi-finals proved to be one of the most exciting matches of the event. In a hill-hill showdown, Raul snuck by “The Kid” to have his shot at revenge against Glenn. It would appear that Glenn Atwell is the only player that Raul Abenojar cannot beat. Raul has faced Glenn several times in the past two months, and just can’t seem to close the deal. Both players were exhausted in the finals, and after gaining a significant lead, Raul wheedled off as many games as he had the energy to muster but fell to 2 games shy with a final score of 13-11.
The next Pechauer stop which promises to deliver lots of action and excitement at Hard Times Billiards in Los Angeles, CA January 1st and 2nd. This should be a really fun event with football and pool and who knows what else! We hope to see you there!
