WPBA Great Lakes Classic / Michigan City, IN
After Thursday night’s initial round, the WPBA Great Lakes Classic has been focusing on winnowing out the one-loss side players. This event is being hosted by the Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City, IN, and will last throughout the weekend.
Sarah Rousey suffered a brutal hill-hill first-round loss to Sarah Ellerby but has since recovered nicely, besting Liz Ford 9-7 and then Angelina Paglia with a strong 9-3 showing to make it her next match, which will be against Helena “The Sledgehammer” Thornfeldt. The Swede lost her first match to Pam Cimarelli (nee Treadway) 9-7 and went on to oust Julia Gabriel 9-7 and Kim White 9-5.
Cimarelli went on to lose in the second round to Julie Kelly in a lopsided 9-1 match. After defeating Nicole Keeney 9-3, her next match will be against Janet Atwell, who lost her first round to Paglia 9-5 and came back through Candi Rego 9-5 and then eliminated Ellerby in a hill-hill nail-biter.
Crowd favorite Ewa Laurance was bested in the first round by Liz Cole 9-4 but is still alive. She fought her way through Kathleen Moon, dealing her a 9-0 donut, and then Stacy Novack, whom she eliminated in a double-hill match to next play another tour veteran, Laura Smith. Smith lost to Tracie Hines in the first round 9-3 but then ousted Susan Williams 9-6 and Philippine sensation Iris Ranola 9-3 to reach Laurance.
After Thursday night’s initial round, the WPBA Great Lakes Classic has been focusing on winnowing out the one-loss side players.
One featured match-up on the one-loss side will be between the feisty Ming Ng and England’s Kim Shaw. Faced with tour powerhouse Ga Young Kim in the first round, Ng was sent to the west side of the chart 9-3, but once there she eliminated Heather Lloyd 9-4 and Cole 9-1. Shaw, on the other hand, lost her second-round match (after besting Williams 9-4) to Hines 9-6. Once on the left side, she ousted Julie Mason-Comitini 9-4 to square off with Ng in the next round.
“9-Ball” star Jennifer Barretta won her first match against Belinda Calhoun 9-6 but lost her second to Xiaoting Pan 9-4. She eliminated Cristina De La Garza 9-3 on the one-loss side to face off against Denise Belanger in the next round. Belanger, a Canadian force, was white-washed by Kyoko Sone in the first round but since then came back with victories over Rhio Flores 9-8 and Supadra Boonpasook 9-7.
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