Chris Rogers, Kathie MacDonald, Dyamelle Castilleja and Room Owner Brandon DeCamp
Canadian Kathie MacDonald’s recorded career at the pool tables coincides with the creation of AZBilliards in 1998. Her first recorded cash payout occurred in Honolulu that year, when she finished 9th at the WPBA Hawaii Classic, won by Jeannette Lee, who defeated Helena Thornfeldt in the finals. Gerda Hofstatter finished 3rd, with Allison Fisher in 4th place. Good company. She continued to compete in WPBA events as the century turned and in 2002, began a 12-year hiatus from the tables. Returning in 2014, she finished as runner-up to Jing-Liu at a stop on the Northwest Women’s Pool Association (NWPA) tour, that saw Cindy Sliva finish 3rd and Liz Cole finish 4th. Also good company.
Last weekend (July 15-16), she joined a group of 45 competitors at the 3rd stop on the 2023 NWPA Tour, the Martha Hartsell Memorial Tour stop, dedicated each year to the Oregon NWPA player who passed in 2010. “Each year,” noted tour representative Nicole Donisi, “our Salem stop honors her sense of community and competition on the tour.” The $1,000-added event was hosted by Phil’s Bar in Grill in Salem, OR.
MacDonald would become engaged in a double-hill battle versus Sarah Myers-Mitchell in the opening round of play. She lost that battle but would go on to win two more matches than any of her fellow competitors even played. She won 9 in a row on the loss side and defeated Dyamelle Castilleja in the finals to claim the event title.
With MacDonald safely (or so some may have thought) engaged on the loss side, Castilleja set out on an undefeated trip to the hot seat, downing Andrea Turner (4), Stacie Larson (0) and Jessie Blayden (double hill), to draw Linda Massey in one of the winners’ side semifinals. Kristi Palmer in the meantime, got by Jennifer Giller (4), Fran Johnson (3), Stephanie Drakulic (4) and Alfreda Amyotte (double hill), to arrive at her winners’ side semifinal against Katherine Robertson.
Palmer got into the hot seat match 6-1 over Robertson and was joined by Castilleja, who’d defeated Massey 6-3. Castilleja claimed the hot seat, sending Palmer off (6-4) to what would become her second straight loss in the semifinals against MacDonald.
On the loss side, merrily was she rolling along. MacDonald downed her nine, loss-side opponents by an aggregate score of 54-9. That’s a game-winning average of 85.7%, or winning about four of every five games she played. She shut out four of her opponents and allowed three others only a single rack. The closest anyone got was in the 4th loss-side round, when NWPA Board Member Nicole Donisi chalked up more racks against MacDonald (4) than all of her loss-side opponents until the quarterfinals combined. MacDonald advanced to eliminate Marian Poole (0) and Evelyn Hazlett (1) to draw Massey. Robertson, just coming in from the winners’ side, drew a rematch versus 14-year-old Marissa Du, whom she’d sent to the loss side in the third round. Du was working on a four-match, loss-side winning streak that had recently eliminated Jessie Blayden and Regene Lane, both 5-3.
Robertson defeated Du a second time, 5-3 and was joined in the quarterfinals by MacDonald, who had shut out Massey. MacDonald gave up two racks to Robertson and none at all to Kristi Palmer in the semifinals that followed.
Castilleja, waiting for MacDonald in the hot seat, was likely aware (more or less) that she’d given up more racks to her first three opponents than her oncoming challenger for the title had given up versus all of her previous nine opponents combined. Conventional wisdom may dictate that a match is always about playing the table and not the opponent (or that opponent’s game-winning record), but that wisdom can be hard to uphold in the face of determined competition. MacDonald gave up only a single rack to Castilleja in the extended, race-to-9 finals and claimed the event title.
Tour representatives thanked Brandon Decamp and his Phil’s Bar & Grill staff for their hospitality, along with the official tour sponsor Littman Lights and Stop #3 sponsors Phil’s Bar & Grill, Savage Billiards Apparel, The Billiard Shop, ICA Training System and BadBoys Billiards Productions. Streaming was provided by Hill Hill Productions; matches can be viewed on NWPA’s YouTube Channel. The tour also thanked Chris Rogers (TD) and Graham Sanchez (Ass’t TD) for directing the tournament.
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