The Ladies Spirit Tour finished up Saturday at Hollywood Billiards in Hollywood, Florida, with only eight women left in the field to play out the day on Sunday and those ladies were anxious to get going first thing in the morning.
On the winner's side, matches were set between Ellen Van Buren/Monica Webb and Helena Thornfeldt/Tamara Rademakers. This group eventually narrowed down to Webb and Rademakers for the hot-seat. Both women fought back and forth with superb safety play, but Rademakers sealed the deal in the end 7-5 to wait it out for her opponent in the finals.
The one-loss side brought back Mirjana Grujicic/Shanna Lewis and Kelly Coyle/Stephanie Mitchell. Unfortunately for Coyle and Lewis, the early round of the day knocked them out for the weekend. The following round did the same for Van Buren and Mitchell. Grujicic would be the next to fall, with Webb in tow with her loss to Thornfeldt in the semis 7-5 (it was said that the semis was set into overdrive when it came to speed).
The semi results nailed down two things, one was that Thornfeldt would be Tamara Rademakers' opponent in the finals and the other was that Rademakers had just acquired the qualifier spot for the first 2009 WPBA Classic Event of the year.
In the finals, Thornfeldt finished out the first set pretty handily 7-2 forcing a second since Rademakers was the queen of the hill. The second set was not such an easy win for Thornfeldt though. The race ended up going double hill before Thornfeldt was able to finish out the weekend as the winner. At 4-3, Thornfeldt missed a very simple eight ball to get on the nine that would have made the score 5-3, instead, it ended up tying up the set 4-4. The entire final set was a back and forth battle to the end with safety play being a highlight. At hill-hill, Thornfeldt broke and made three balls with a shot on a two, but the rack itself showed to be quite a difficult run, but Thornfeldt sunk her heels in and played flawlessly making an incredible run out to double dip Rademakers.
Since this was the last event of the season that the players could acquire ranking points, the updated points list will be the next focus for the ladies on the tour to see where they end the year. For those interested, it is estimated that the points roster will be updated during the early part of the week. For the most recent tour news, visit the website at www.ladiespiritour.com.
The season finale will be held November 8th-9th at Capone's Billiards Lounge in Spring Hill, Florida. The finale boasts a minimum of $3000 added for the women and is sure to be a phenomenal battle to the end (two events within the 2008 season must have been attended prior to the finale to play). Good luck to all of you!
