by Skip Maloney

The $500-added, B-D handicapped Tri-State Tour billiard event drew 24 pool players to Sandcastle Billiards in Edison, NJ.

In what came within a single match of pitting two brothers against each other in the finals, Jason Egeln defeated George Osipovitch to capture the first-place prize at the Tri-State Tour’s August 2 stop. The $500-added, B-D handicapped event drew 24 entrants to Sandcastle Billiards in Edison, NJ.

The brothers, Egeln and Dave Fitzpatrick, started the day among the winners’ side-final four and after defeating Osipovitch and Gary Murgia, respectively, faced each other in the hot seat match. It was elder brother Fitzpatrick, with a slightly lower rating (C), who entered the match with a game in hand against his higher-rated (C+) sibling. That single game at the start was the only lead Fitzpatrick held in the match. Egeln sent his brother to the semifinal match with a 6-3 victory and waited for him to return.

On the one-loss side, Tony Iglesias defeated Phil Carr 7-4, as Mario Sahatjian ended Chris Giannakouros’ tournament 7-5. Ossipovitch and Murgia, over from the winner’s side, then dropped Iglesias and Sahatjian into fifth place before facing each other in the quarterfinals. Ossopovitch advanced on the heels of an 8-6 victory to meet Fitzpatrick in the semifinals. In a match that featured a lot of safety play, Ossipovitch denied Fitzpatrick the opportunity to meet his brother in the finals by defeating him 6-4.

In the extended-format finals that would have gone to 8 games had Ossipovitch reached 6 games first, Egeln took command early and won it 6-4 to finish the tournament undefeated.

Results:
1st Jason Egeln
2nd George Ossipovitch
3rd Dave Fitzpatrick
4th Gary Murgia
5th Tony Iglesias
Mario Sahatjian
7th Phil Carr
Chris Giannakouros
9th Ed Liddawi
Ben Sadowski
Wazeer Abasi
Ralph Pannuzo