Three In A Row For Tara Williams On OB Tour

Forty players showed up the weekend of May 2 & 3rd at Clicks Billiards in San Antonio, TX to play in the third stop of 2015 on the OB Cues Ladies Tour.  Top players from throughout the Texas area and one player from San Diego were vying for the $775 first place prize in this event.  

 

On Saturday, forty players were reduced to twelve ladies that would be returning on returning on Sunday morning. The final four in the winners bracket returning were Sophia Lopez vs Tara Williams and Belinda Lee vs Tina Malm.  The eight ladies returning on the one loss side were Jennifer Kraber vs Barbara Wisdom, Helen Hayes vs Tracie Voelkering, Natalie Mans vs Gail Roles, and Kim Pierce vs Michelle Yim. 

 

9th-12th finishers were Barbara Wisdom, Tracie Voelkering, Natalie Mans, and Kim Pierce. 7th-8th place went to Jennifer Kraber and Gail Roles (her highest finish to date!); 5th-6th places went to Sophia Lopez and Belinda Lee. 4th place went to Helen Hayes and 3rd place went to Michelle Yim. 

 

Tara Williams made her way through Saturday with wins over Krystal West (7-6), Terry Petrosino (7-2), and Michelle Yim (7-1).  On Sunday, she continued her undefeated run and to earn a spot at the hot seat with another win over Sophia Lopez (7-4).  On the other side of the winner’s bracket, Tina Malm was making her way through her Saturday matches without much opposition.  She posted wins over Angela Garza (7-1), Monica Anderson (7-0), Natalie Mans (7-1) and Tracie Voelkering (7-3).  On Sunday morning, she continued her run besting Belinda Lee (7-2) for her spot in the hot seat match.   In the hot seat match, both players showed the reason that they made it through their brackets with the tough field that was in attendance this May weekend.  After trading racks until tied a four games apiece, a missed safety by Tina after the break allowed Tara a run out to pull ahead 5-4.  With the alternate break format, Tara broke and ran the next rack to reach the hill, and then Tina answered back with her own break and run to set the score at 6-5.  On the final rack, Tara once again broke and ran to take the hot seat and wait for her opponent.

 

For the 3rd place match, Tina quickly got a lead over Michelle Yim and didn’t look back, earning a spot in the finals with a 7-1 win.  In the finals, in the true double elimination format, Tina would need to beat Tara twice in order to win the event.  It was not to be though; both players struggled early on to find the level of play that had allowed them to make their finals appearance.  After a few back and forth racks, there nerves settled down, but Tina was already down 4 games by the time she was able to make it on the board.  Tara was able to finish out a few racks when up 5-2 to win the event in one set with a final score of 7-2.  Congratulations to both ladies for a great tournament!  With this third win in 2015 for Tara, she makes only the third player to ever win three consecutive events; Lisa Marr was the first player to complete this feat in 2002 and Leslie Anne Rogers completed this feat in 2004.  Congratulations on an awesome accomplishment Tara!