Viejas Casino in San Diego Ca. is hosting the WPBA tournament for the 9th year in a row this week. A charity event kicked off Wednesday night where fans had the opportunity to mingle with players and even had a chance to play a pro-am tournament with them.
Play began early Thursday morning at 10:30. First round matches included a 9-7 win for Florida's Helene Caukin over New York's Jennifer Baretta. Caukin then went on to defeat Megan Minerich 9-8 in her second match. In the second round on the winners side, Ewa Laurence defeated Tiffany Nelson 9-4 and Janet Atwell beat Helena Thornfeldt 9-7.
Melissa Herndon and Sarah Rousey had an exciting second round match on the winner's side. The two ladies went back and forth throughout the match. At 6-6 Rousey had the break and broke and ran the rack to go up 7-6. The next rack Herndon broke made the 1 and 2 balls before playing safe on the 3 ball. Roussey attempted to play safe back but missed allowing Herndon to run out the rack to make it 7 all. Rousey broke for the next rack making no balls but leaving Herndon with a tough jump shot on the one ball. Herndon made the jump on the one, pocketed the 2 ball before missing the 3. Rousey, trying to take advantage of this error made the 3 and the 5 ball and then scratched in the side pocket to give Herndon ball in hand and win the game to go up 8-7. In the final rack, Herndon broke and ran for the 9-7 victory.
Another exciting match on the winners side included Leslie Ann Rogers who had a 8-6 lead on US Open winner Ga Young Kim. Kim made a strong come back to make it 8-8 and broke and ran the final rack only to scratch on the 9 ball to leave Rogers with the 9-8 win.
The tournament still had the usual suspects on the 2nd round of the winner's side late Thursday night including #1 ranked Allison Fisher, Vivian Villareal, Karen Corr, Jeanette Lee and Julie Kelly. Friday's matches will include Allison Fisher vs. Jennifer Chen and Melissa Herndon against Jeanette Lee.
Complete brackets for the event are available on the WPBA website.
