California State Junior 9-Ball Championship
MARTINEZ And CUTTING Win Junior 9-Ball Open 19 & Under Boys & Girls Events In Sacramento
A measure of how much junior competition has grown in just the past year is name recognition. In the early part of this year, even if you were a regular reader here at AZ, you might never have heard of Tatum Cutting, Sofia Mast, Gabriel Martinez or Landon Hollingsworth.
N
ow, with fall just around the corner and some major junior championship events on the horizon, you’re probably recognizing those names. Their current relevance is that the first two (Cutting and Mast) finished as winner & runner-up in the $5,000-added Junior 9-Ball Open for 19 & Under Girls event held at Hard Times Billiards in Sacramento, CA this past weekend (Aug. 14-15). The second two (Martinez & Hollingsworth) finished as winner and runner-up in the $5,000-added boys’ equivalent at the same location.
faced and defeated in the semifinals of the 3rd JIC event back in April. Savannah Easton and Asia Gillespie squared off in the other one. Cutting sent Meyman to the loss side 7-3 and in the hot seat match, faced
Easton, who’d defeated Gillespie 7-4. Tatum gave up just a single rack to Easton and claimed the hot seat. On the loss side, Mast downed Hayleigh Marion 7-2 to pick up Asia Gillespie. Meyman drew Sophia Lua, who’d lost
In a very small field of young women (seven), the finalists in the 19 & Under Girls event were two of the best junior competitors in the country, Tatum Cutting and Sofia Mast. Each has won two of the six events on the Junior International Championship (JIC) circuit. Cutting was runner-up to Mast twice in those events, while Mast placed 3rd and 4th in Cutting’s two wins. Having attended all six of the JIC events, Mast is currently ranked as #1 in the JIC 18 & Under Girls division. Cutting is third. This time out, it was Cutting who took home the top prize. They faced each other twice; in a double hill opening match and again, in the finals. Cutting’s initial victory put her into a winners’ side semifinal match against Kennedy Meyman, whom Cutting had
32 | Billiards Buzz • September 2021
Tatum Cutting
