---
title: "Cousins Beats Styer in Hill-Hill Final to Win National Open at Grand Finals"
url: https://billiardnews.net/cousins-beats-styer-to-win-national-open-at-grand-finals
published: 2026-11-09T06:24:07Z
updated: 2026-11-09T06:24:07Z
summary: "Tom Cousins beat Tyler Styer 6-5 in a hill-hill final to win the National Open at the Ultimate Pool USA Grand Finals in Cherokee, closing out the week's last event."
author: "BilliardNews Editorial"
categories: ["Tournaments"]
tags: ["8-Ball", "Cherokee", "Grand Finals", "National Open", "Tom Cousins", "Tyler Styer", "Ultimate Pool USA"]
lang: en
---

# Cousins Beats Styer in Hill-Hill Final to Win National Open at Grand Finals

*Tom Cousins edged Tyler Styer 6-5 in an overnight decider at Harrah's Cherokee to close the 512-player National Open — the last match of Grand Finals week.*

Tom Cousins is the National Open champion at the Ultimate Pool USA Grand Finals, edging Tyler Styer 6-5 in a hill-hill final at Harrah's Cherokee that closed out the biggest week in league pool.

The 512-player event's title match went deep into the North Carolina night. Level at 5-5 for a long stretch, the decider finally fell Cousins' way — the official DigitalPool bracket timestamps the finish at 06:16 UTC, more than three hours after the final broke off. For the Englishman it settles a score from earlier in the week, when he lost the National Shootout final 5-4 to Oscar Dominguez.

## The road to the final

Cousins reached the title match with a 7-3 semifinal win over Joe Prince, while Styer had come through the tighter half of the last four, beating Gerson Martinez Boza 7-5.

## Margaret Styer takes the Women's Open

There was consolation of sorts in the Styer household. Margaret Styer — fresh from winning the National Pairs alongside her husband — took the National Women's Open title with a 6-1 final win over Skylar Hess. Hess had beaten Rachel Lang 6-2 in one semifinal; Styer dismissed Sofia Mast 6-1 in the other.

## Benoit & Melling win Mixed Pairs

Ashley Benoit and Chris Melling claimed the National Mixed Pairs crown, beating Avah Weems and Oscar Dominguez 6-2 in the evening's first final. The champions had earlier ended the Styers' pairs run 6-1 in the semifinal, while Weems and Dominguez survived a 6-5 hill-hill decider against Shane Van Boening and Sofia Mast.

Cohen Bradford rounded out the weekend's champions by taking the National Junior Open.

With the last ball down, Grand Finals week is complete — league titles settled in the 8-Ball and 10-Ball Teams events, the Shootouts, Pairs and all the opens. The full day-eight picture is in the [ncuemedia results snapshot](https://ncuemedia.com/ultimate-pool-usa-grand-finals-day-8-results-snapshot).

*Scores are per the official DigitalPool bracket.*