Northern Lights Shootout Update

It’s Day 2 or 3 or 4 or whatever here in Rugby, North Dakota and I have somehow managed to win the winner’s side of the ladies division.

Only 15 girls showed up and about 100 guys in the men’s division.

I’ll keep this short because I’m pretty pooped.

We were told the tournament started at 7p.m. Friday night. By around 8p.m., they finally finished the draw and assigned tables. I didn’t play my first match until 10:30p.m. UGH! I lost my first match to Jana Montour, champion from Canada who has several Masters wins under her belt. She is a seasoned player.

That was the only match I would play on Friday night. Fortunately for me because I was pretty exhausted. My next match was not until 10a.m. Saturday morning. I won two matches and made it into the redraw.

Redraws are nice when you come in on the loser’s side. Then, it makes you feel like you really maximized your three possible losses.

At this point, after three matches, I didn’t feel I played that great at all. I made some good decisions, but missed many shots and was not that thrilled with my overall performance at all.

Fortunately, I managed to make it into the redraw and Calcutta. I was done by 3:30p.m. and wouldn’t play my first round of the redraw until 6:30p.m.

I won my first two matches of the redraw. In the second match, I was up 3-0. She broke and ran, I didn’t get out, and then she broke and ran again to make it hill-hill. At hill-hill, I missed a shot, leaving the 8 ball in front of her ball, wired into the corner pocket. I had a ball sitting near there I couldn’t played off the 8 ball if I’d gotten perfect on it, but I played a carom off the rail and the back side of the 8 ball to free it and had the other ball as my security ball afterwards. It was a pretty helacious runout. Mike said I gave him a heart attack when I started running the balls off because he didn’t know what my plan was. heehee…

My next match was for the driver’s seat. I would wait a couple hours before playing again (even though there were open tables around me). A clam chowder and half a chicken finger later, I would draw Jana again.

Happily, I FINALLY played well. I only missed one ball in that entire match and turned the tables around. After losing to her 4-1 in the first round, I beat her 4-0 for the driver’s seat. I’M SO EXCITED!!!

No matter what happens tomorrow, nobody can take away from me all the great shots I made and the confident, amazing feeling I felt when I played that entire match. I won and I deserved it. FINALLY!

I just hope I can keep it up tomorrow. Finals are at noon.

Going to bed now. I’m pooped… G’night!

Share on Facebook