Hill-Hill Victory for Hernandez

by InsidePOOL Staff

Fifty-six billiard players turned out at River Grove, IL, the weekend of January 26-27, with Gil Hernandez ending up the big winner. This Viking Cue 9-Ball Tour event was hosted by Chris’s Cue Phoria Billiards and saw over $4,000 added to the prize money.

Hernandez went undefeated to the finals, besting Jon Kucharo 9-4, Tommy Hernandez 9-8, Santos Sambajon Jr. 9-4, and Sergio Perez 9-7 to claim the hot seat. Meanwhile, on the one-loss side, Shawn Putnam breezed through Sambajon 7-2 and Andy Friedhofen 7-1, only to be relegated to third place by Sergio Perez 7-2 in the semifinals.

Perez punished Hernandez 9-6 in the first set of the true double-elimination format finals, setting up a race to 7 for the title. The fans were not disappointed as the second set went hill-hill and Perez fouled, leaving Hernandez a 2-9 combo for the win. Hernandez could have run out the table but elected to shoot the combo and missed. Perez played safe on the 2 ball, and Hernandez jumped the 8 ball and lucked the 2 ball in off the 8 ball, at which point he proceeded to run out for the win.
 
1st Gil Hernandez
2nd Sergio Perez             
3rd Shawn Putnam          
4th Andy Friedhofen         
5th Adam Maloney        
Santos Sambajon Jr.
7th Tommy Hernandez   
Ike Runnels