The final round for selection in the 2011 ACT Ladies Team was held this weekend at The Maram. The field included defending Champion Nicole Welsh, as well as former Ladies Singles Champions Cindy Blackmore, Theresa Whitten and Lesieli O’Connor. Backing up from last year’s Top 12 were Michelle Massey, Penny Foudoulis, Heather Robertson and Jennifer Everett. Ann Peffer, Kathy Harmon and Theresa Skipper made welcome returns to the Top 12, while Tammie Ashlin was the sole newcomer.
With 6 of last year’s brilliant Ladies Team in the field, as well as the player who withdrew due to injury, the quality of the Top 12 was as high as ever. With the Top 4 to qualify for next week’s State Title Top 4 Shootout, and the Top 7 to be offered places in the 2011 ACT Ladies State Team, the format for the weekend was four round robins of 11 frames apiece, for a total of 44 frames. That’s a lot of pool…
Play began on the Saturday with the defending Champion, Nicole, taking the early lead with a big round of 9 frames. Shelly sat one frame back on 8, while Kathy, Les and Theresa W finished on 7. Already the field was starting to spread out, but with 33 frames each to play, anything could happen.
Nicole hit an amazing 10 frames in the second round to finish the day in first on 19, but this wasn’t quite there compared to last year, where she finished 21/1 at the half way point. Shelly maintained 2nd place with a round of 7 for a total of 15, with Theresa W one back on 14 and Les rounding out the top 4 on 13. Cindy was next on 12 and three ladies were tied at 11. At this point the gap between 8th and 9th had opened up to a massive 4 frames, leaving the trailers a lot of work to do sneak in on the Sunday.
Cindy finally made her move on the Sunday morning, as after disappointing (for Cindy) rounds of 6 and 6 on Saturday, she easily topped round three with 9 to leapfrog from 5th into 2nd place. Nicole’s 7 frames gave her a 5 frame lead and basically ensured her a state spot, while the rest of the group played the tightest round of the weekend, nine of the players hitting 5, 6 or 7 frames. Shelly slipped one spot the 3rd on 20, while Les and Theresa W sat equal fourth on 19.
Theresa S started strongly in round one, but was below her best as she slipped to just 7 wins and 12th place. But watch out those Concords this Wednesday as she will almost certainly bounce back. Tammie showed she was a player of the future with some strong play as she nabbed 12 wins for 11th place, taking at least one frame off each of the final top 4 (including Nicole’s only loss in round 1).
Jennifer could only lament the 4 consecutive in/offs she played on the black in round 4, followed by a miss on an easy black in the next frame (no doubt thinking about the in/off…). She finished 10th on 15 frames, but give her back those 5 throwaways and things might have very different for that last spot in the 7. Seriously, has anyone out there ever had such poor luck?
Ann had battled well in round 3 to make up for a slow start, winning 7 frames, but her last round 5 was to leave her agonizingly just out of range for the top 7 in 9th spot.
Nicole went on the rampage again to smash 10 frames and finish an astonishing 7 frames clear of second place, the same margin as last year (although she won one more frame last year). Cindy consolidated her comeback with a round of 8 to finish 2nd on 29.
Les, Shelly and Theresa W had gone into the last round battling for 3rd and 4th, and it was to be Les and Theresa who came out on top. Les hit a massive 9 frames to finish 3rd on 28 frames, while Theresa pushed her all the way with 8 of her own on the 4th round to finish one frame back on 27. Shelly, meanwhile, suffered her lowest round of the weekend with 4 frames, but her outstanding play had earned her another well deserved State Team invitation.
But while Cindy’s performance on Sunday nailed her 2nd spot, and Ann came from a long way back to almost steal a State spot, the other story of Sunday was Heather. Sitting a few frames back from the top 4 after round 3, and not assured of a Top 7 spot, she smashed 8 frames in the last round to give the top 4 Ladies a scare, finishing just 2 frames back but easily securing a State Team invitation in 5th place, one frame ahead of Shelly in 6th.
But the real battle was going on for 7th between Penny and Kathy. Tied on 11 frames at the half way mark, Penny got the jump on Kathy to lead 17-16 going into the last round. With the top 4 contenders winning everything in sight, Penny was left to scrap for a mere 4 frames in the last round, finishing on 21. Kathy, meanwhile, wasn’t faring much better as she had only 3 wins from her first 9 frames. Needing to win her last two frames to force a playoff, Kathy duly beat Theresa S and Jennifer to force the playoff. After the pressure of winning those last two frames, Kathy was unable to keep it up as Penny won the playoff to nail 7th spot and the last invitation to the State Team.
So congratulations to Nicole, Cindy, Les, Theresa W, Heather, Shelly and Penny on winning invitations to play for the ACTE Ladies Team in Campbelltown later this year. After last year’s outstanding runners up result, it is satisfying to see such a strong and experienced team make the grade this year.
Well done to all the ladies who entered this year’s trials. When you are trying to break into a team that are National Runners Up it is a pretty bloody big ask, but the association is stronger for your participation.
Next Saturday sees Nicole, Cindy, Les and Theresa compete for the 2011 ACTEBA Ladies Singles Title. All four ladies have won this title before, so together with the Ladies Doubles Top 4 we see the perhaps the strongest Ladies Top 4’s in ACTEBA history. Play commences at 11am at Ojos in Tuggeranong, with the ladies playing a round robin race to 4, followed by a final of race to 7. So come down to Ojo Bar & Café in Tuggeranong to see some of the best eight ball you will see this year.
As always, a massive thank you to The Maram for hosting our event so far. I urge all ACTEBA members (at least the southside ones) to pop in and have a beer at this fantastic venue. And of course a big thank you to the adjudicators for the weekend, Trent Billington and Sir Scrol OEBDM.
Full results: http://www.acteba.com.au/downloads/2011_Ladies_Singles_Top12_Results.xls
Chris Jones
ACTEBA Tournament Director
