Castle Billiards has been a fantastic back-drop this weekend (May 23-24, 2009) for one of the fastest growing tours on the east coast – the J. Pechauer Custom Cues Northeast Women's 9-Ball Tour (JPNEWT). Many thanks to owners John and Minnie (and their great staff) for their continued support of the regional pool scene, check them out at www.castlebilliards.com
Saturday drew the field down to just twelve late in the day to begin again on Sunday at a very early 9:30 a.m. The die-hards were in full force with the sole member of Kiss of Death remaining, Borana Andoni to face Pam Cimarelli (formerly Treadway) on the undefeated side of the brackets, along with Megan Smith (formerly Minerich) against Rhio Anne Flores.
Smith pulled past Flores rather comfortably at 7-4 to then face Cimarelli in the hot-seat which had bested Andoni 7-5. Although the hot-seat held a close ending, Cimarelli came out on top of Smith 7-5 to seal her spot in the final round.
The one-loss side pitted North Carolina's Katie Cowan against Supadra Boonpasook; Holly Sholes v. Erica Testa; Briana Miller v. Linda Shea; and Leslie Furr v. My-Hanh Lac. The first round saw the following make their morning exists: Boonpasook 7-4, Testa 7-1, Shea 7-5, and Furr 7-3.
This set up a Cowan-Sholes match that ended up being one-sided for the most part as Sholes took the reigns and didn't let go sending Cowan home 7-2; My-Hanh Lac sent young Briana Miller on her way as well 7-5. Leaving Sholes and Flores to battle it out and Lac and Andoni to have a revenge match from the last event in which Lac ended Andoni's tournament life in a nailbiter. Unfortunately for Andoni, this weekend would not turn out as such as Lac bested her 7-1 to move on.
With this outcome, the Sholes and Flores match took on more importance as it would be one of the two that would acquire the WPBA qualifier spot. The set was a tight one, but Flores pulled ahead and took not only the match 7-5, but the qualifier. Flores' victory would be short lived, however, as Lac pushed her out the door in a 7-2 upset in the round that followed, leaving Smith and Lac to hook horns in the semis to see who would make it back to Cimarelli.
Ironically, the semis was a repeat of last event's finals in which Lac bested Smith 9-6 to take the New York State Championship title. This time around Smith stole the show taking Lac out of play 7-5. The finals would then see Cimarelli immediately take the lead 5-2 and Smith pushing to make a comeback. With the modified race finals, if Smith reached seven before Cimarelli, the women had to go to nine. It looked to be the course things would take as Smith was playing a strong game today and ultimately worked her way to 6-6, but Cimarelli finished the job at 7-6 shutting her out.
The next event scheduled for the JPNEWT is July 18th-19th at Primetime Sports Bar & Grill in Sayreville, New Jersey. Check out both websites at www.jpnewt.com or www.ptsportsbar.com
