A field of 35 of NEWT’s strongest players gathered at Hagerstown Billiards & Café on November 11th and 12th for the final stop of the Y2K tour. Hosts Gary and Jason Carbaugh added $500 to the purse and a Player’s Choice Qualifier to a WPBA pro event for the event’s winner.

On Sunday morning the final 8 came back to resume play. The winner of the hot seat would be a highly contested match between MD native Colleen Miller and NY’s Romana Dokovic. Colleen bested her way through the chart with wins over Chang, Roe, Monaco, and Rhee. Romana posted wins over Brooks, Tidwell, M. Smith, and Clark. The match between these two previous tournament and qualifier winners kept the spectators in their seats. Colleen and Romana traded games with Colleen reaching the hill first. Romana joined her at the hill with the next game. Romana broke and scratched and Colleen eyed a 5-9 combination. Colleen ran up to perfect position on the 5-9 combo, and hit it, only to have the 9 jaw in the pocket. Romana stepped up and found the success that eluded Colleen to send her to the 1-loss side to face SueYen Rhee.

Colleen and SueYen matched up evenly for the first two games, then SueYen went on the defensive to cool down Colleen and go up 5-2. Colleen then turned the table back to SueYen with a kick/safety in the 8th rack which resulted in ball-in-hand back to Colleen who then eventually caught up to SueYen to tie her at 5-5. After exchanging numerous safeties in the 11th rack, SueYen gained the upper hand to run out the rack and reach the hill first. Sue Yen broke and scratched and Colleen ran out to the 3, tried to play a safety on the 4, but left it wide open for SueYen to run out the rest of the rack to win and meet Romana in the final race to 9.

Romana was rested and in fluid stroke to meet SueYen in the finals. SueYen was kept in her chair practically the whole time during the match, only coming to the table to kick at a hook, or a rare open shot at the object ball. Romana powered through the finals, 9-0, adding insult to injury by snapping the 9-ball in on the last break.

The ladies of NEWT wish to thank Jason and Gary Carbaugh of Hagerstown Billiards & Café for hosting us. We would also like to thank Jerry and Scott of Pechauer Cues for their support of our tour for this year and look forward to their support in the upcoming year.

Tournament Results:

1st $550 + WPBA qualifier of players choice - Romana Dokovic
2nd $450 - SueYen Rhee
3rd $325 - Colleen Miller
4th $225 - Ellen Chang
5th/6th $150 - Carol Clark/Gina Kim
7th/8th $100 - Micaela Dames/Megan Smith
9th/12th $50 - Nicole Monaco/Laura Metzger/Jamie Drobnick/Jennifer Barretta

by Barbara Stock