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Rae Evans Wins AWBT Season Opener

Rae Evans

The first stop of the AWBT was the weekend of March 18th and 19th at Bull Shooters. With a late start to the season all the ladies were ready and eager to get going. The first event of the season drew 33 entrants in the Main event and another 15 entrants in the second chance event. The opening event drew entrants from 4 different states and although a majority were locals the out of towners were ready to put up a fight. 
 
This was the first time there was a handicap put in place to make the event more competitive and also with the hopes of growing the AWBT. The players were put into three groups A+,A and B with the A+ players racing to 7 games, the A players racing to 6 games and B players racing to 5 games. There was a ton of discussion but after day one the players seem to adjust quick and with the amount of hill/hill matches the new format seemed to be a success!
 
As the Main Event wound down and the Dust settled it would come down to Rae Evans from California and Susan Williams from Arizona. The two ladies never gave an inch and we saw our first HILL/HILL final of the season, after Susan made a combo on the 10 ball which appeared to end the match the cue ball drifted into the corner pocket leaving a 4 ball run for Rae to complete to earn the 1st AWBT title of the year. 
 
The second chance event saw 15 entrants battling for the 200 prize fund and it was Tracie Hamman winning 1st place followed by Lynor Johnson in 2nd. The 3rd and 4th positions went to Melissa Doherty and Beth Orth
 
We would like to thank all of our sponsors and Bull Shooters. Bull Shooters added 580.00 for the weekend and another 200.00 from sponsor money totaling 780.00 added. Sponsors include, Las Glorias Grill, Slikster, Sophia’s House Cleaning and Your way Logistics. 
 
We hope to see you at the next event in MAY where we will have a total of $1000.00 added Fargo event! The dates will be MAY 6th and 7th at Skip and Jan’s. See you there!
 
Last but not least this is the first year with Chris Adams and Junior Flores handling the AWBT and I (Chris Adams) could not do it without Junior, we look forward to the rest of the year and hope to continue this positive progress! Thanks again to all the 
ladies that came out and we will see you in MAY!
 

Jaye Succo Wins Her First AWBT Event

Final eight players (minus Susan Wilbur)

The Arizona Women’s Billiard Tour held their June event at Skip & Jan’s Sports Bar in Tempe, Az on June 8th – 9th – and Jaye Succo showed the field of twenty players why matches aren’t decided on paper.
 
The field included the usual selection of top talent from Arizona, Las Vegas, New Mexico and Wisconsin; with top seeds that included Bernie Store, Susan Williams, Sara Miller and Vegas’ Stacy Allsup
 
Bernie Store looked like the player to beat early on this weekend as she scored day one wins over Tracie Hamman, Susan Wilbur and Sara Miller. On the opposite side of the board, Jaye Succo had day one wins over Lynor Johnson, Beth Orth and Amanda Pulley to remain undefeated going into Sunday play.
 
Two favorites that didn’t escape day one were Susan Williams and Stacy Allsup. After a first round bye, Williams dropped a hill-hill decision to Susan Wilbur and was eliminated two matches later by Tracie Hamman. Allsup’s day was even worse with a “two and out” performance.
 
Play got underway on Sunday with Bernie & Jaye being joined by six players on the one loss side. That number would be cut to four players on the one loss side with Orth defeating Hamman 7-6 and Wilbur defeating Justine Bishop 7-4.
 
Sara Miller would then end Orth’s day with a 7-1 scoreline, and Wilbur kept her tournament hopes alive with a 7-2 win over Amanda Pulley. 
 
The final four players would then be in action with Sara Miller snuffing out Susan Wilbur’s tournament hopes 7-3, while Bernie faced off against Jaye for the hot-seat.
 
On paper, the hot-seat match should have been a no-brainer. Bernie hasn’t finished lower than 2nd place all season and this would be Succo’s first time playing for an AWBT hot-seat. The race to seven match saw Bernie making her way to the hill first with a 6-3 lead. Neither player looked to be enjoying fighting with the tough pockets at Skip & Jan’s, and Bernie appeared to tighten up a little when she got to the hill. Jaye showed that she was more than capable of taking advantage of Bernie’s uncharacteristic careful play as she won the next four games to take the hot-seat 7-6.
 
On the one loss side, Bernie looked like the player we are all used to watching as she broke open a close 2-2 match to quickly dispatch Sara Miller 7-3 and earn the chance to redeem herself against Succo in the finals.
 
The final match was a race to nine and it would go all the way to the 17th game to determine a final winner. A 2-0 Store lead was tied up at 2-2. Bernie would then surge ahead 5-2, but Jaye clawed back to 5-4. It was then that Bernie took control of the match and raced to the hill at 8-5. Jaye would need to win four games before Bernie won one more. Jaye took the next rack, and then the next. Before the fans knew what had happened, Succo had erased another three rack deficit and tied the match at 8-8. The final game would be decided quickly when Store hung the 9-ball in the corner pocket and left an unmissable 1-9 combo. Succo did not miss the combo as she celebrated her first AWBT tour victory.
 
While fans who were not in attendance might have been surprised by these results, tour director Tres Kane showed no surprise at all. “Jaye is playing up to her ability today”, he said. “I have watched her playing Sunday night league against some of the top players in Phoenix and she has learned a lot over these last few months” he commented.
 
Succo definitely looked at the tournament as an accomplishment. After the event, she said “I’m ready for any challenge thrown my way. I knew I had to work my way up, as far as the standings and actually winning a stop, but I didn’t think it would happen this fast – especially against someone who shoots as well as Bernie.”