Valerie Maloney retains her National Intermediate Billiards Championship Title in Newbridge

Valerie Maloney from Laois retained her National Intermediate Billiards Championship Title with great play at the RILSA Academy Sharkx Newbridge recently. Valerie is the first player to retain this title and well deserved after a great day’s display of billiards. Joanna Ward took runner up spot, a great result for her as she makes progress in female billiards.

The Championship was run in a round robin format and a 45 minute time limit. This is the first time we introduced the 45 minute limit to our events and we will continue to hold 45 minute round robin matches at Championship level.

Session 1 saw the current champion Valerie Maloney from Laois having to give it her all against the Dublin youngster Jennifer Earle who had chances to take the match on the alarm, however Valerie held firm and took the win 65-57 in this close encounter. On the other table, it looked like yet another draw between Stephanie Morrison from Carlow and Joanna Ward from Kildare with Joanna scoring a cannon on the alarm to take the win 61-59

In session 2 Stephanie continued her form with good scoring against Jennifer. Jennifer had chances again in this match but Stephanie finished the stronger on the clock to take the win 68-55. Valerie stepped up a gear in her match against Joanna going 20 points ahead in the first 10 minutes however Joanna fought back well to keep in touch but Valerie drove through the final minutes with good scores to take the match 71-56

The final session was where it all mattered as the scores were close, Jennifer kept ahead of Joanna for much of the time however Joanna scored a few small breaks of 9 and 15 to pip the win on the alarm 70-65. Valerie kept up her good form against Stephanie who had chances to go ahead in the match but broke down on a number of shots that let Valerie get in and scored well when it was needed to take the win 79-57

On the final tally, it was Valerie all the way with her highest overall score of 215 points to take the title once again with Joanna finishing 2nd on 187 points while Stephanie was just outside by 3 points on 184 and Jennifer finishing on a respectable score of 177

Congratulations to Valerie on retaining her National Intermediate Billiards Championship title and for the 3rd season in a row holding onto her number 1 spot, a fantastic achievement for the Laois woman, well done to Joanna on her fine performance taking runner up spot and finishing the season number 2. Well done to all the players for their participation and support female billiards.