The Tiger Tour returned to Bill & Billie's CueSport on October 7/8th for a weekend of new events. Last month, the Open Division held the US Open Warm-up event and this weekend the ladies played a special 2 day event. This was a WPBA qualifier event that drew players from several states. On Sunday, the first ever East Coast Juniors Championship was held with a small but strong field of players under the age of 21. Bill & Billies room owner Kurt Ziem has been a long time pool supporter and this event was no different making this a $2500 added event.
There were several strong contenders for the qualifying spot as well as a few WPBA pro players in the mix to make for a 24 woman field. Top 10 ranked players Kelly Fisher and Tiffany Nelson joined local pro Sueyen Rhee to show the hopefuls what the level of play is on the WPBA tour. An early matchup between Amanda Pasko and Fisher found the challenger Pasko down 5-6. Fisher took control and the next 3 games to win 9-5. Fisher continued her way easily to reach the hot seat match where she was joined by Nelson who had escaped a 9-8 win over Rhee.
On Sunday, the remaining 8 players continued to chase the money and qualifying spot. Fisher defeated Nelson 9-4. Current Tiger 9 Ball Tour points' leader Pamela Treadway advanced over Val Finnie and Kathleen Lawless by 7-2 scores. A hard fought 7-6 win over Rhee made Treadway's qualifying spot all the more deserved. Nelson defeated Treadway 7-4 to earn another chance at Fisher. This was Fisher's event and she won the final 7-4 earning $800 and sending Nelson home with $550 for 2nd.
The first ever East Coast Juniors Championship brought players from Virginia to Massachusetts all hoping to carry home the trophy and cash. An early round matchup between strong contenders Chris Futrell and Matt Shilinski saw Matt reverse a 4-0 deficit to go up 6-4. Chris remained calm and won the next 3 games to advance 7-6. This win seemed to spur Chris on as he was untested the rest of the day defeating TJ Remsberg 7-2 and David Kline 7-1 to reach the hot seat. His opponent was Cisco Cifuentes Jr. who had been playing well so far. This match went to Chris 7-4. Cisco took a brief trip to the elimination bracket to defeat Kline before gearing up for a rematch with Chris. The final single set final race to 9 was uneventful as Chris dominated 9-1 for the title. Chris took home a nice trophy and $350 in cash.
