IBA Tournament
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27 December, 2007 10:57
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Last month the GPA attended the Inaugural Islands Blackball Association tournament held in Rosyth, Scotland. An enjoyable weekend of pool played against the Isle of Man and Shetland. The Gibraltar squad consisted of two men's teams and 1 woman's team of seven players each.
Gib Men's A: Charlie Bear (c), Kevin Dalli, Jonathan Victory, Paul Cartright, Francis Becerra, Liam Golt and Albert Perez.
Gib Men's B: Karl Jones (c), Chris O'Connor, Francis Flores, Charles Santos, Owen Torres, Dalton Martinez and
Sean Rumbado.
Sean Rumbado.
Ladies: Karina Flood (c), Val Trotter, Sarah Taundry, Vicky Heggie, Debbie Cunningham, Harriet Seed and Nicky Correa.
Ladies Tournament
This year's Gibraltar Ladies squad consisted solely of experienced players, with a new edition to the team, Nicky Correa.
The first match against Shetlands was the first great win. All the Gibraltar Ladies played extremely well with the final score being 14-7 to Gibraltar. Val played a great first match as she went on to win all 3 of her frames.
After the round-robin event, The Gibraltar Ladies had played extremely well and finished in 1st place in group stage..
When it came to the Ladies Individuals event, the Gibraltar Ladies did extremely well with several of the girls
getting passed the second round. Sarah played brilliantly throughout the Individual event making it all the way to the Semi-Final where she lost to Val Caley of the Isle of Man.
getting passed the second round. Sarah played brilliantly throughout the Individual event making it all the way to the Semi-Final where she lost to Val Caley of the Isle of Man.
Another great achievement for the Team was Karina, who played extremely well meeting Amanda Cutt of the Shetlands in the semi-finals. This was an exciting game with Karina playing her best match of the tournament and going on to win it 4-1 taking her to the final to play against Val Caley. Unfortunately, Karina didn't manage to maintain her form and went on to lose 5-2 in the Final. Congratulations on getting all the way to the Final Karina!!!
Men's Tournament
The tournament got under way on the Friday evening with the opening ceremony and the start of the individual event. Unfortunately a number of the Gib players were paired together in the early rounds and this meant that there were few left in the latter rounds, although special mention must go to Charlie Santos who made it through to the Quarter finals on his International debut, where he was joined by fellow ‘llanito' Jonathan Victory.
The Saturday morning saw the start of the team event with both Gib teams going head to head. The A team stormed ahead to win the first session 6 to 1 and although the B team won the other two sessions, the deficit was just to big to make up and Gib A ran out winners by 12 to 9.
Sunday brought the last round of men's matches with the Isle of Man A team already qualified with a 100 % record and the Gibraltar B team already eliminated. The other four teams were all on the same amount of points and frame difference was going to decide who made it to the semi final. The Gib B team had their worst match of the tournament and went down 14 to 7 to the Shetland A team. The Gib A team fared little better against Isle of Man A just by one frame going down 13 to 8 again loosing concentration on the third session, where Jonathan Victory's win in this session was crucial for a tense wait to see if they had qualified in fourth place. They had, just, by frame difference.
Semi Finals
Gibraltar A were paired with the all conquering Isle of Man A team and for two sessions they held their own with the scores being level at 7 to 7. Unfortunately it was not to be as Isle of Man A won 4 out of the next 5 frames to win 11 to 8. Again another heartache for the Gib A squad that was so close on all games but could not get past the finishing line.
Men's Final
The Isle of Man A team went on to beat Shetland A quite comfortably in the men's final and with the Individual men's event final being an all Isle of Man affair, this meant that they had taken 3 of the 4 titles on offer. With the pool finished all that was left was to hand out all the prizes and carry on the party back at the Gib hotel. What a weekend!
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