The Arizona State All Around Tour made it's way to Main Street Billiards in Mesa Arizona with a field of 55 players for the 4th stop on tour, the Arizona State 9-Ball Championship.
With the field including sixteen of the top 20 points list players, as well as Scott 'The Freezer' Frost and two of Arizona's best ladies; Angel Paglia and Susan Mello, this event easily has the strongest field seen in any local event in quite some time.
Multi time Arizona State Champion Angel Paglia received a rude welcome to the event when she drew Terry Osborne in the first round. Terry not only sent Angel to the one loss side, but he handed her a 9-0 doughnut on the way. Angel would be back in the spotlight before the event was over though.
The first round had it's share of near upsets, as George Rowe went to 7-7 with tournament favorite Scott Frost before Frost won the last two games.
As day one drew to a close, players on the one-loss side were sweating their matches hoping to make it to day two where they would be guaranteed money as well as more of those valuable all-around point. Players falling just short on Saturday included George Ramirez, Chris Bradford, Don Westbrooks and Az Senior State Champion Pete Lhotka.
Day two dawned with sixteen players still competing for first place. State Straight Pool Champion Jimmy Mendoza dropped a heart breaker to Dennis Orender on the winners side and found Terry Osborne waiting for him on the one-loss side. Osborne has lost to Jimmy just two weeks prior in the finals of the Straight Pool Championship and he was more than happy to return the favor and send Mendoza packing in 9th place. Osborne would then find his tournament at an end as Angel Paglia made up for her earlier loss and eliminated Osborne in 7th place.
The winners side came down to defending All Around champion Tony Confalone and Scott Frost. A couple mistakes by Frost led to opportunities for Confalone and he didn't waste those chances as Confalone took the hot seat 9-6.
Frost eliminated Gus Briseno on the one-loss side in a match that both players would like to soon forget, and earned the rematch with Confalone in the finals.
In the finals, Frost looked like a different player than the one who faced Confalone earlier in the day. The uncharacteristic mistakes were long gone and in their place was just run-out 9-ball. Before Confalone knew what hit him, Frost had ran away to an 11-2 in in the finals. Confalone's second place finish was enough to give him first place on the points list going into next month's Barbox 10-ball event at Alexanders in Phoenix.
Complete Results:
1st Scott Frost $1315
2nd Tony Confalone $1010
3rd Gus Briseno $570
4th Dennis Orender $355
5th/6th Angel Paglia, Mike Sandoval $125
7th/8th Terry Osborne, Ben Hrabina $100
9th/12th Jimmy Mendoza, Bernie Pettipiece, Bob Soto, Chris Adams $75
13th/16th Mike Pankoff, Gary Andrews, Mitch Ellerman, John Morton $50
