 My-Hahn Lac |
The 2007 season wrapped up for the tour at Champions Billiards & Café in Arlington, VA on Dec 8th/9th. A huge thank you goes to new room player/owners Wai Cho Yee and Willis Lam. The room opened 3 days before our event and table mechanics worked all night to get most of the tables into playing condition. This was a $4000 added event made possible by the owners and the tour sponsors. A strong field of 53 Open Division entries and 16 Women's Division players entered to make their final mark on the 2007 season.
Matt Clatterbuck had an uneventful Saturday with wins three easy wins to make the final 4 winner side. Points' leader Shaun Wilkie also had no problems winning his first two matches 9-1 before facing the Women's Division points' leader My-Hanh Lac. Wilkie played a controlled match and won 9-3. Tour founder Danny Green played well in all four of his matches to reach Sunday undefeated. Joining Clatterbuck, Wilkie and Green in the final four was Manuel Chau who has been a strong contender in the few events that he has played in this year.
Play continued Sunday with Clatterbuck and Chau advancing easily over Wilkie and Green respectively by 9-4 scores. The hot seat match was hard fought with Clatterbuck winning on the hill 9-8. The elimination bracket played out with Larry Kressel coming back from 6-2 to win 7-6 against Brandon Shuff ending Shuff's bid for the points lead. Kressel fell victim to a determined Danny Mulhollen III. Mulhollen had lost his first match but rebounded with 6 wins to pit him against Wilkie. Wilkie won this one 7-5 and then slipped past Green 7-6. Chau was not happy with his heartbreaking loss for the hot seat and defeated Wilkie 7-5 to earn a rematch with Clatterbuck.
The single race to 11 final between Chau and Clatterbuck was flawless. Clatterbuck took an 8-4 lead but watched as Chau evened the score at 8. Chau mad the most of his next turn at the table running out the set to win 11-8. Neither player missed an open shot in this match. 1st was worth $1500 with $1000 for 2nd.
An even field of 16 players came out Sunday to shoot at the $1000 share of the added money. Points' leader My-Hanh Lac had a challenging day winning over Bethany Kurtz 7-2, Ming Ng 7-4, Asia Cycak 7-6 to reach the hot seat match. Her opponent was none other than second place on the points list, Cheryl Squire. Lac seemed to establish who was number one when she raced out to a 6-1 lead. But Squire fought back game after game until the score reached 6-6. Lac calmly sank the 5-9 combination to advance to the hot seat.
In the elimination bracket, Malea Haacke came out on top of Ng 5-4 and then put Cycak into 4th place. Squire seemed unfazed by her hot seat comeback that came up short. She breezed through Haacke 5-0 to reach the finals. The single set race to 9 went back and forth until a timeout at 5-5. Play resumed with Lac taking charge and winning 9-6. 1st was worth $560 with $350 for 2nd.
The 2007 points races were won by Shaun Wilkie who played consistently all year long and My-Hanh Lac who dominated the Women's Division with 5 tournament wins. Lac also earns the WPBA regional tour spot allowing her to play in 6 pro events in 2008.
