NZPA North Island 8-Ball
May 19th, 2008
It’s been at least seven years since an NZPA tournament was held in Lower Hutt, so it was great to see players travelling down to play in the North Island 8-Ball tournament held at Blue Cue, Lower Hutt from 17-18 May 2008. Even the thick fog that blanketed Auckland on Friday didn’t stop the seven Auckland players from making the journey south.
It was disappointing to see only a small field, but although small, it was a good field of players from both APA and HCPA.
A couple of surprise upsets in the Men’s section play - Anthony Burns (HCPA Regional 8-Ball winner) failed to qualify, Steve Wild (HCPA) who hasn’t played in an NZPA 8-Ball tournament for several years, qualified top in Section 1 and was top qualifier overall; while in Section 2 Adrian Powell (APA) won all his games to top qualify in section play and was second top qualifier overall.
The women’s section was a very small field of four players - two from APA and two from HCPA. They played their games right though to the final on the Saturday, with Miriam Tinkler top qualifier and taking out the tournament.
The Men’s Post Section play commenced on Sunday morning and the Semi-Finals proved to be very close games, with Steve Wilkd (HCPA) narrowly going down by two frames to Jon Grimley (APA), and Chris Bowman (APA) narrowly going down to Nick Pelling (APA) in a nail-biter of a match.
In the final, Jon Grimley’s game went from strength to strength taking out Nick Pelling, who had just completed a very close Semi with Chris Bowman.
Mens Quarter-Finals: S Wild (HCPA) bt A Duncan (HCPA) 7/3, J Grimley (APA) bt M Mitchell (APA) 7/4, C Bowman (APA) bt A Thomson (HCPA) 7/3, N Pelling (APA) bt A Powell (APA) 7/5.
Men’s Semi-Finals: J Grimley bt S Wild 8/6, N Pelling bt C Bowman 8/7,
Men’s Final: J Grimley bt N Pelling 9/3.
Women’s Semi-Finals: M Tinkler (HCPA) bt L Prescott (APA) 6/1, H Laanbroek (APA) bt C Hobbs (HCPA) 6/2.
Women’s Final: M Tinkler bt H Laanbroek 7/4.
