The Arizona Women’s Billiard Tour ended their 2012 season on December 1st and 2nd at Bullshooters in Phoenix, and more was at stake than just first place in the tournament. With three ladies within striking distance of the top spot on the tour points list, the ladies would be keeping an eye on other tables all weekend to see how other top ladies were doing in their matches.
Although Susan Williams held the lead on the poinsts list, Las Vegas’ Stacy Allsup and Arizona’s Angel Paglia were both mathematically in the running for the top spot. And to make things even more interesting, all three of these ladies remained undefeated into the final four players on the winners side Sunday. They would be joined in the final four by Sonia Flores, who looked to be intent on spoiling the tournament for any player unfortunate enough to get in her way.
Susan Williams sent Flores to the left side of the board 7-2 on Sunday and Angel Paglia earned a tough 7-5 win over Allsup to set up a Williams/Paglia hot seat match. With the win over Flores, Williams locked up at least third place and that would be enough to rule out a Paglia points list win.
Paglia had a slow start in the hot-seat match, as she watched Williams move out to an early 3-1 lead. Angel apparently decided that she had seen enough of Williams pocketing 9-balls and stepped her game up a notch or two. Paglia would win six of the next seven games for the 7-4 win and the hot-seat.
On the one loss side, Allsup and Flores bounced back nicely from their winners side losses. Allsup defeated Sara Miller and Flores beat Leandrea Gaff.
Allsup and Flores then faced off against each other and Flores took early control of this match. Before Allsup knew what hit her, Flores was sitting pretty with a 6-1 lead. Allsup hadn’t drove all the way from Vegas to just lower her head and take a beating though, and she clawed back to 6-5 before Flores was finally able to put away the match 7-5. With the loss to Flores, any hopes of the tour points victory for Allsup were gone and Susan Williams was able to briefly celebrate the tour points win.
Susan was not able to celebrate for long, as she would have to face Flores to determine who would play Paglia in the finals. Susan quickly took a 4-1 lead over Flores and kept the pressure on as she defeated Flores 7-3 to earn the rematch with Paglia in the finals. Flores finished in third place, her best tour finish to date.
The final match was an extended race to nine and Williams was trying to erase the memory of the loss to Paglia for the hot-seat. Williams looked well on her way to doing just that as she won rack after rack to find herself with a 7-3 lead. Again, Paglia would dig down and find another level of play. Paglia would not lose another game as she won six straight games for the 9-7 victory and first place. Along with the $400 in first place prize money, Paglia also won the paid entry to the WPBA Masters in February.
The second chance tournament on Sunday saw Claudia Justus go undefeated and beat Connie Soots in the finals for the tournament win. Justus pocketed $90 in prize money, while Soots settled for $60. Beth Orth finished in third and earned $30 in prize money.
