Jennifer Kraber and Ashley Nandrasy
The OB Cues Ladies 9-Ball Tour hosted its 3rd stop of 2010 at Fast Eddie's Billiards in Austin, TX the weekend of April 17-18. Forty-seven players were in attendance for the $2000 added event. It was the perfect pool weekend with storm clouds and scattered showers in the area for the duration of the event. The weather seemed to roll into the poolroom on Saturday, as there were some stormy matches with unexpected forecasts throughout the day. By early Sunday morning, the winners' bracket had 4 faces that have yet to win an OB Cues Ladies event, while all the previous winners found themselves in the B-side or already out of the main event.
Finishing in the 9-12th spots early Sunday morning were Lisa Henderson-Major, Melinda Bailey, Sue Chong (her highest finish to date), and Helen Laiche. The next round of B-side matches pitted perennial favorites Amanda Lampert against Lisa Marr and Deanna Kniola against Orietta Strickland. Lisa came out ahead against Amanda at 7-1 and Orietta managed to scrape by Deanna at 7-6. Lisa had her tournament closed out next round by Alicia Stanley to finish 5-6th; she was joined with Julie Stephenson in that finish, as Orietta continued her run in the main event. She continued by benching Alicia Stanley with a 7-4 finish to leave Alicia with 4th place spot. Local favorite, Jennifer Kraber, managed to stop Orietta's run to the finals in a hill-hill nail biter to send her home with a 3rd place finish.
In the finals, Jennifer Kraber and Ashley Nandrasy were competing to see who could win their first OB Cues Ladies event. In the true double elimination format, Jennifer would have to beat Ashley twice to take the title. It appeared that Jennifer was going to run away with the first set, as she had Ashley down 5-0, but they grinded out the match with Jennifer finishing out the first set 7-5. The girls regrouped and began again; this set would guarantee the winner of the event. With one set under her belt, it appeared that once again Jennifer was going to run away with her first title, but Ashley was not down for the count. She battled back from a 5-2 deficit and managed to get to the hill first, before Jennifer tied it up 6-6 to force one game for all the marbles. Nerves appeared to get the better of both players as neither player took charge of the final game and in the end, Ashley pocketed the key 9-ball to take her first win. Congratulations to Ashley and Jennifer for a great tournament and an exciting finals match!
In the second chance event, 26 players competed on Sunday morning in the $125 added event. A big thanks to Dan Leteff for adding the additional $25 and being available to mend the ladies cues that were in need. Michelle Cortez took the hot seat and waited for an opponent. On the B-side, Kim Pierce worked her way back through to play Michelle for her second time this event. In the end, Kim proved to be too much for Michelle and took the win in a true double-dip fashion.
Thanks to Fast Eddies's Billiards for hosting this event and for the hospitality shown to the players by your staff. A big thanks to OB Cues for the donation of the raffle cues that made our event possible, as well as our additional sponsor, Tiger Products. We would also like to extend a special thanks to WPBA professional, Cristina De La Garza, for her donation of an American Airlines flight voucher, which was given away in a players only raffle on Sunday.
Our next stop will be at Clicks's Billiard in Dallas, TX the weekend of June 12-13th. Hope to see you there for Good Pool, Good Friends, Good Times!!!
