The APA Men’s 8-Ball field was small, but extremely competitive.  Chris McBreen, as a number seven seed in Section 2, made this section a tough one. 

The number one seeded player, Glen Coutts, only managed to qualify fourth in his section, as junior player Sean Stevenson was the top qualifier with six wins and a +12 differential, Mark Mitchell from Kaitaia had six wins and a +9 differential which made him the second qualifier, and Aaron Shaw came in as the third qualifier.

In Section Two, Chris McBreen was top qualifier with seven wins.  Number two tournament seed, Jimmy Henry, qualified third in section play with Chris Bowman in second place and Dan Burns scraping through with three wins.

However, post-section play produced some outstanding reversals of form.  

In the quarter-finals, number 8 qualifier Dan Burns must have thought, “Who is Chris McBreen?”, because he demolished him 5/1 in the sixth frame.  Dan broke and got four “unders” off the break with the other three balls and the black out in the open, and then he cleared.  Jimmy Henry, after losing 4/1 to Chris Bowman in section play, reversed this result and beat Chris 5/1 in another quarter-final match.

Jimmy and Glen then had a nail-biting semi-final with Jimmy coming out on top 6/5.  In the other semi-final, after a long match, Aaron Shaw beat Dan Burns 6/4.

The final saw Jimmy Henry prevail over Aaron Shaw 7/3 and take out his first APA Regional Men’s 8-Ball title.

 In the APA Women’s 8-Ball event it was great to see three new faces – Connie, Jade and Caprice.  In amongst a few giggly matches there were many short breaks as all seven competitors in the section were smokers!  Mother and daughter, Connie and Jade Adams, both playing in their first tournament, proved to be very competitive players with Connie qualifying third.

Harata Kay was 2-1 up on Lorna Frost in her last section game, but managed to foul the black in the fourth and fifth frames, giving Lorna the win, which meant they had to play each other again in the semi-finals.  Lorna was number one qualifier with six wins and Tracey Thompson second, with five wins.

Both semi-finals were hard fought matches with players not prepared to give their opponents an inch.  Tracey missed as easy last ball to most certainly win her match 4/1.  Connie resolutely fought back to level at 3 all, but Tracey took the final frame to win 4/3.  In the other semi-final, Lorna overcame Harata 4/2.

The women’s final saw a repeat of last year with a match between Lorna and Tracey.  Tracey, however, never really got going and Lorna won her third Regional Women’s 8-Ball title, 5/1.