Page comes from deep on the loss side, splits with Ringgold to claim Q City 9-Ball Tour title
The winner and runner-up at this past weekend’s (Sat., May 24) stop on the Q City 9-Ball Tour had very similar earning results at the table in 2024. As recorded by us into our AZBilliards Money Leaderboard, winner Steve Page was out in front of runner-up J.T. Ringgold at the end of the year by […]
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JT Ringgold
The winner and runner-up at this past weekend’s (Sat., May 24) stop on the Q City 9-Ball Tour had very similar earning results at the table in 2024. As recorded by us into our AZBilliards Money Leaderboard, winner Steve Page was out in front of runner-up J.T. Ringgold at the end of the year by less than $100. Both chalked up wins on the tour last year; Ringgold with two and Page with one; his first on the tour at the time. The first of Ringgold’s two wins last year (June) was his first win on the tour in five years. His second came five months later (Oct.). Page has been at this longer. Nine years longer, beginning in 2004, with Ringgold recording his first cash payout with us in 2013.
Page was longer at the table this weekend, as well. As Ringgold set out on a five-match march to the hot seat, Page didn’t get out of his second winners’ side round. He ended up winning seven on the loss side, including a double-hill, semifinal rematch against Justin Outlaw, who’d sent him over, doubling his workload. The two opted out of a final match and split the top two prizes. The $250-added event drew 30 entrants to Mickey Milligan’s in New Bern, NC.
Page got started with an 8-3 win over Jarvis Miller, before running into Outlaw in the second round. Outlaw advanced 5-5 (Page racing to 8), survived a double-hill match versus Daniel Sanchez and drew Damon Kotke in one of the winners’ side semifinals. Ringgold, in the meantime (racing to 11 throughout), gave up only two racks in his first 24 games. One each to Triston Kotke and Tommy Prater before being challenged, double hill, by Robert Perez, who chalked up five of the six racks he needed before Ringgold dropped his 11th 9-ball and picked up Jack Whitfield in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Ringgold won his second straight, double-hill match 11-6 over Whitfield and was joined in the hot seat match by Outlaw, who’d sent Kotke off to the loss side 5-2. In what would prove to be his last match, Ringgold claimed the seat with a shutout over Outlaw.
It was Kotke who had the misfortune of running into Page, four matches into his seven-match, loss-side streak. Page was giving up ‘beads on the wire’ to every one of those first four (between two and four) and beyond, right up to the semifinal. Most recently, giving up four, Page had defeated Katlin Ward 8-1 and giving up two, downed Perez 8-4 to pick up Kotke. Whitfield drew Pamela Perry, who would enter the AZ database for the first time this weekend. She’d lost her opening-round match to Jamie Hackney and went on her own extended, loss-side trip; six in a row as it turned out, including the recent elimination of Daniel Sanchez, double hill, and John Monegro, almost double hill (4-3, Monegro racing to 5).
Perry got three ‘beads on the wire’ in a race to 7 that she didn’t end up needing against Whitfield, as she dropped him 4-3. Page shut out Kotke to join her in the quarterfinals, where he ended her loss-side streak by allowing her only a single rack.
The semifinal rematch was on. It’s hard to imagine that a competitor who’s had the number of matches they’ve been forced to play, doubled with the constant threat of elimination hanging over you as a ‘bonus,’ not stepping to the table with a bit of a subliminal growl in his (or her) head against the competitor who made that happen. It’s all part of the ‘mental game’ of pool, though, dictating that even a subliminal growl is counter-productive, a distraction you don’t need. It was almost predictable, the double-hill match that occurred. Three ‘beads on the wire’ for Outlaw in a race to 8. In what proved to be the last match of the event, Page won it 8-4. Negotiations got underway for a split of the top two prizes and assignment of the ‘official’ winner went to Ringgold.
Tour director Herman Parker thanked the ownership and staff at Mickey Milligan’s for their hospitality, along with sponsors BarPoolTables.net, Break Time (Clemmons), TKO Custom Cues, Realty Group One Results, CHC Underground, Digitalpool.com, Dirty South Grind Apparel, Federal Savings Bank Mortgage Division and AZBilliards. The next stop on the Q City 9-Ball Tour, scheduled for Saturday, May 31, will be a $500-added handicapped tournament, hosted by Breaktime Billiards in Clemmons, NC.
