Northwest Women’s Pool Association final tour stop & 2022 awards banquet was held at Ox Billiards in Seattle, WA. Thank you to Ox for adding $1500 to this stop.
36 players came out to play on the beautiful 9ft Rassons. (Ox also features snooker and Chinese 8ball tables).
2022 season player awards went to:
Player of the Year: Molina Ortíz
Rookie of the Year: Sue Frisbie
Most Improved: Robin Adams
Presidents Award: Anna Russo
Three-time tour stop winner Molina Ortíz of Portland, OR was knocked to the B-side in a strategically played game by Suzanne Smith of Edgewood, WA.
She was eventually knocked out by Ox regular Frances Tso with a tragic hill-hill 9ball scratch and finished 4th.
Frances Tso of Kirkland, WA had a great first NWPA tournament, finishing in 3rd place. Losing early to Suzanne 6-4, she ground out wins on the B-side, defeating Cindy Sliva, Robin Adams, Liz Cole, Katherine Robertson & Molina Ortíz before falling to Kathie MacDonald 6-3.
Kathie Macdonald of Abbotsford, BC played strong through the A-side but was defeated 6-4 by Suzanne Smith late in the bracket. After downing Frances Tso 6-3, she was back to face Suzanne in the finals, in a straight race to 9. The two battled back and forth keeping the race even until Suzanne pulled away two games in the 9th rack. A gutsy out by Kathie kept her afloat, but Suzanne fired in a 3-9 combo to reach the hill first. Kathie returned the favor with a 4-9 making it 6-8. However, Suzanne bore down and finished out the match 9-7.
NWPA Tour will return next year, follow us on Facebook or visit playnwpa.com and 2023 stops.
Added money sponsors:
Savage Billiard Apparel All American Fire Protection Century21 North Homes Realty
Plates Law Group
Ox Billiards Ford Ford III
E&E Sports
Golden Fleece
Maxi’s Restaurant Players Sports Bar Everett
Chris Rogers, Molina Ortíz, Liz Cole, Mike Deitchman (commentator) and Mike Littman
Through her three straight wins on the Northwest Women’s Pool Association tour since July, her first-ever recorded series of events with us here at AZBilliards, Molina Ortiz has steadily improved her game-winning percentage. She won 62% of the games she played at Stop #1, 72% of them at Stop #2 and 74% this past weekend, Sept, 17-18. She has won 17 straight matches, went undefeated at all three events and downed Liz Cole in the finals of the last two. Only two players forced her into a double hill showdown; Cole in the finals of Stop #2 and Kathie MacDonald in the second round of this past weekend’s stop. The $1,500-added event drew 26 entrants to Sam’s Hollywood Billiards in Portland, OR.
At Stop #2, she and Cole went head-to-head in both the hot seat and finals. At this latest stop, they emerged from the lower part of the bracket and faced off against each other in a winners’ side semifinal, immediately after Ortiz had been challenged, double hill, by Kathie MacDonald. Mary McConnell, in the meantime, squared off against Suzanne Smith in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Ortiz sent Cole to the loss side 7-1 and was joined in the hot seat match by McConnell, who’d sent Smith over 7-3. Ortiz claimed her third hot seat with a 7-1 victory over McConnell.
On the loss side of the bracket, Cole picked up Cristy Barsky, who was working on a five-match, loss-side streak that was about to end and had recently eliminated Susan Andree 6-2 and Melissa Rushton 6-4. Smith drew Katherine Robertson, who’d been defeated by Cole in a winners’ side quarterfinal and gone on to defeat current NWPA President Stephanie Drakulic 6-2 and Kathie MacDonald 6-4.
Cole downed Barsky 6-1, as Smith was eliminating Robertson 6-3. Cole followed with two straight double-hill wins, over Smith in the quarterfinals and McConnell in the semifinals.
When the finals got underway, Ortiz and Cole had met three times before; twice at Stop #2 and once, at this event. Ortiz came into the match with a 22-12 game record over Cole. She turned that into a 31-15 match record with a 9-3 win to claim her third straight NWPA title.
Tournament director Chris Rogers thanked the ownership and staff at Sam’s Hollywood Billiards, as well as sponsors Mike Littman (Littman Lights) and The Trough Bar & Billiards of Portland, OR, each of whom added $500 to the event’s prize fund. The next stop on the NWPA, scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 29, will be hosted by Phil’s Bar & Grill in Salem, OR.
