Ranola wins Az Qualifier

Iris Ranola

26 Women from all over came to Pockets, Tucson to play in the AWBT’s 5th stop!  This was a $500 added paid WPBA Qualifier for the Pacific Coast Classic event!

Hill-hill was the name of the game this weekend!  Out of just the last 14 matches alone, 6 went hill-hill!  Sunday started with the top 8 ladies.  The top 4 on the A side were:  Iris Ranola from the Phillipines vs. Emily Wilmoth from Florida and Nicole Keeney from Colorado vs. Michelle Micik from Tucson.  The top 4 women on the B side were: Phoenix ladies Sara Miller vs. Susan Willams and Tucson ladies Mary Moench vs. Lois Schmitt!  

Iris defeated Emily (7-6) and Michelle defeated Nicole (7-6). They then went on to play each other in the hot-seat match.  Iris won the match by the score of 7 to 3 which earned her the coveted hot seat.

7th/8th place was determined when Sara lost to Susan (7-4) and Mary lost to Lois (7-1).  5th/6th place was determined when Nicole lost to Susan (7-6) and Lois lost to Emily (7-1).  Susan won 4th place as she was defeated by Emily (7-5).  Emily then went on beat Michelle (7-4) for 3rd place.

After all was said and done, two women remained.  Iris Ranola and Emily Wilmoth.  Since this was a true double elimination format, Emily would have to beat Iris in two sets of a race to 7.  Since both of these women came from so far away to play in this tournament, we new we were in for a great match!  Iris won the lag and away they went.   The games went back and forth until the score was 4-4.  The ladies took a break, came back, and then Emily won the next two games which put her on the hill.  Iris quickly won the next 3 games which won her the set, the match and all the marbles!  Congratulations to Emily for an awesome 2nd place finish and a big congrats to Iris for the win and the paid qualifier spot!  We’ll be looking for you on TV at the WPBA Pacific Coast Classic Event!

12 women came back on Sunday to play in the free second chance tournament.  Congratulations to Ashea Erdahl for winning the hot-seat and then winning first place ($40)!  Congratulations to Krystal Edmonson for 2nd place ($30) and to Pat Schultz for 3rd place ($20)!

The AWBT gave away 2 beautiful J. Pechauer Custom Cues at this event!  The first cue was valued at $480.  As promised at the beginning of the season, the tournament directors chose a random event to hold a player draw for this cue.  Well guess what!  This event at Pockets was the event chosen and Sara Miller was the very lucky winner!  The funny thing is, after years and years of buying tickets to try and win a cue, she finally wins and it’s the one time she didn’t have to spend a dime!  Congratulations you lucky lady!

The second cue was valued at $560 and it was gorgeous!  Congratulations to Pockets very own server Ceres (Sara) Pineiro for winning this stunning J. Pechauer Custom Cue!    Thank you to everyone who bought tickets and for all your support.  We raised $300 and all proceeds help the AWBT keep playing so we really appreciate it!

We were excited to have photographer Rick Schmitz from Rixx Images on hand snapping pictures of the women playing during both days of the tournament.  A slide show of Ricks photographs played on the big screen all day Sunday! The women really enjoyed all the pictures and were able to purchase their favorites!  It was a joy having you there Rick!  We hope you’ll come back to future events!
 
A HUGE thank you goes out to Valerie, Eric and everyone at Pockets!  We had so much fun! We love your pool hall!  The new big screen TV’s are awesome and the new sitting area was perfect!  The tables are always in great shape as always, and the food was terrific!  Lenny and Donna we sure did miss you, but look forward to seeing you next time!

We hope to see you at next months $500 Added WPBA Qualifier which will be held at Kolby’s Korner Pocket in Tempe on September 27-28!  This was previously going to be for a 2009 WPBA Classic event.  But we have exciting news!  It is now going to be a paid qualifier for the prestigious 2008 WPBA Championships to be held in Florida in November!  As a reminder you can see our remaining 2008 schedule, points standings and past tournament info on our new website AWBT.NET!  Thanks again to Eric Rima for creating that for us!