Tina Pawloski and Melissa Herndon
Thirty-two women descended upon Mr. Pockets Sports Bar in beautiful, sunny Manhattan Beach, CA this weekend for the inaugural event of the Tiger Southern California Ladies 9-Ball Tour event. Melissa Herndon, a professional player on the WPBA and a long time supporter of women's pool, started the SCL9T tour to fill a gap in women's pool in southern California and to provide an outlet for the vast talent in the region. A very successful first event with a great turnout and $700 first prize!
Tina Pawloski from San Diego would remain undefeated for this event, winning over Lauren Ward from Los Angeles in the hot-seat match and the race-to-9 final match. No stranger to the finals, Tina was overheard to say that she was happy to finally take another first place after so many second place finishes at the USBTC and the BCA Masters last year. Her stellar play throughout the event was admired by many of girls ...and she is definitely an inspiration to up-and-coming players and the members who had only experienced APA or BCA league play previously.
Lauren posted wins over such notable players as professional player Melissa Morris, Stefanie Boch, who came out of semi retirement to place a very respectable third place, and Emilyn Callado, a rising young talent from Daly City. Lauren said that she ran out of gas a little in the finals…but she was quite happy with her play throughout the tournament. She took home a sizeable $470 second place prize.
Thanks to Tiger Products for signing on as title sponsor of the SCL9T tour. They provided an Icebreaker jump/break cue for raffle…and part of the money raised was used to extend the payouts from 1/4 of the field to 3/8 of the field…and to slightly pump up the payouts at each level. Thanks also to PoolDawg.com for stepping up to support and sponsor this tour. Both Pooldawg and Tiger provided some goodies that went into welcome bags for all the players in the event…which really made the event special to the ladies who had never played in a big event before.
Ten players returned on Sunday for the second chance tournament which featured a round robin format race-to 2 for a $10 buy-in.
Lila Woodland went undefeated throughout the whole round robin...and she got $60 for her efforts. Nellie Del Rosario won 6 matches, and got $30 for 2nd place. Rachel Dickenson and Lisa Gonzalez tied for 3rd with 5 wins, each getting their $10 back.
Many thanks also to Andy Chen who provided the live stream, to the wonderful staff of Mr. Pockets, and to all the fans and supporters who stopped by the event or watched the live stream.
Information on future events will be posted on the SCL9T website…www.scl9t.com.
