2023 ARCHIVES
2023 STOP 1
March 4
Shooters Family Billiards
Wayne NJ
- 30 player field -
1st $650 Briana Miller
2nd $500 Kia Burwell
3rd $275 Charlene Capers
4th $175 Giavanna Napolitano
5th $ 90 Christine Press
5th $ 90 Linda Shea
7th $ 65 Cheryl Sporleder
7th $ 65 Roseann Daw
L-R: Giovanna Napolitano, Briana Miller, Kia Burwell, Charlene Capers
NEW TD, BRIANA MILLER, COMES FROM THE LOSS SIDE TO WIN JPNEWT SEASON OPENER
Skip Maloney, AZBilliards
March 9, 2023
The former J. Pechauer Northeast Women’s Tour director and the current tour director met in the 2023 season opener of the tour this past weekend (Saturday, March 4th, spilling deep into the wee hours of Sunday, March 5). The two of them – Linda Shea (former) and Briana Miller (current) – came within a game of double hill in a winners’ side quarterfinal, but when the smoke cleared, it was Shea advancing and Miller heading off to the loss side. Shea followed her over immediately afterwards, following a winners’ side semifinal loss to Kia Burwell, last year’s tour rankings champion. Miller and Shea almost had a rematch in the event’s quarterfinals, but Shea got eliminated in the matches for 5th/6th and Miller went on to challenge Burwell in the finals, eventually claiming the event title. The $500-added event drew 30 entrants to Shooter’s Family Billiards in Wayne, NJ.
Burwell’s path to the hot seat went through Lynn Richard, Jenn Sylvester and Cheryl Sporleder to arrive at the winners’ side semifinal against Shea. Charlene Capers, in the meantime, got by Lenore Donovan-Chen, survived a double hill match against Ada Lio and defeated Char Dzambo to arrive at her winners’ side semifinal against Christine Pross.
Both battles for advancement to the hot seat match went double hill, with Burwell advancing over Shea and Capers defeating Pross. Burwell claimed the hot seat 7-4 over Capers and waited on the 3:30 a.m., Sunday morning return of Miller.
On the loss side, it was Pross drawing Miller, who, following her loss to Shea had defeated Jennifer Tully 7-2 and Cheryl Sporleder 7-1. Shea picked up Giovanna Napolitano, who’d lost her second-round match to Sporleder and began a five-match, loss-side streak that had recently eliminated Dzambo by shutout and Roseann Daw 7-4.
Miller got herself into the quarterfinals with a 7-2 win over Pross, while Napolitano crashed the Miller/Shea rematch party by downing Shea 7-5. Miller ended Napolitano’s loss-side streak at six with a 7-1 victory in the quarterfinals and then, got a shot at Burwell in the finals with a 7-4 win in the semifinals.
Time stamps on the brackets show the hot seat match concluding at 11:12 p.m. on Saturday night. The quarterfinals finished at 2:13 a.m. on Sunday morning and the semifinals at 3:29 a.m. At that point, Burwell, waiting in the hot seat, had been idle, except (one assumes) for some practice to stay loose and in-stroke, for over four hours. There are very few veteran, competitive pool players of any gender or age who’ll make excuses for a loss, but when the loss-side momentum of a continually active player is set against a hot seat occupant who’s been more or less idle for a long period of time, the final matchup has a way of stacking up against the idle player. It’s not a sure thing, of course, but momentum seems to have a way of showing up as the victor in such circumstances enough times to make the otherwise intangible factor, significant.
It was an extended race to 9. Briana Miller brought momentum into the finals and captured her first 2023 JPNEWT title with a 9-5 victory over Kia Burwell that concluded at 4:43 a.m. on Sunday morning.
Tour director Briana Miller thanked the ownership and staff at Shooter’s Family Billiards for their hospitality, as well as title sponsor J. Pechauer Custom Cues, Frank Maialetti (PA Pro-Am Pool Streaming), George Hammerbacher (Advanced Pool Instructor) Streaming commentator, Mezz Cues and Turtle Rack. The next stop on the JPNEWT, scheduled for the weekend of April 1-2, will be a $1,000-added event, hosted by Champion Billiards Sports Bar in Frederick, MD.
2023 STOP 2
April 1-2
Champion Billiards Sports Bar
Frederick MD
- 20 player field -
1st $675 Briana Miller
2nd $525 Karen Corr
3rd $270 Kia Burwell
$270 Nicole Christ
5th $ 85 Gracie Kelly-Casey
$ 85 Judie Wilson
$ 85 Linda Shea
$ 85 Lynn Richard
L-R: Briana Miller, Kia Burwell, Gracie Kelly-Casey, Nicole Christ, Judie Wilson, Lynn Richard, Karen Corr, Linda Shea
MILLER DOWNS CORR IN 2ND STOP OF JPNEWT
Alyssa Solt, AZBilliards
April 6, 2023
Karen Corr has a strong reputation on the J. Pechauer Northeast Women’s Tour (JPNEWT). In her past eight tour events, she has won seven of them, and only one of them was a split. That split was against Briana Miller in the final stop of the JPNEWT in 2022. With Miller back in the picture, taking the reins of the JPNEWT from Linda Shea in January, Miller has won eight of 10 on the tour. At this weekend’s JPNEWT stop #2 (April 1-2), these monster players met again in the finals, this time with Miller claiming the title, going undefeated in the $1,000-added event that drew 20 entrants to Champion Billiards in Frederick, Maryland.
The 9-ball tournament format was Round Robin, with four groups of five players. Each player in their group would face the other four group members once. The two players with the most wins in each group advanced to Day 2. The top four players with the highest Fargo Rate were seeded into separate groups for the Round Robin phase; Karen Corr, Briana Miller, Linda Shea, and Tina Malm.
The players that advanced to Sunday’s elimination, race-to-8 matches paired Judie Wilson with Nicole Christ and set perennial tour opponents, Linda Shea and Kia Burwell against each other. Corr faced Lynn Richards, as Miller squared off against Gracie Kelly-Casey.
Wilson advanced to the single elimination round by only two racks, while her first-round opponent, Christ, had advanced because while Tina Malm had won in their group, Malm was unable to attend Sunday’s matches. Christ downed Wilson 8-4 to draw Briana Miller, who’d eliminated Kelley-Casey 8-1. Burwell downed Shea 8-4, advancing to the semifinals versus Corr, who’d shut Richards out.
Miller got into the finals with an 8-2 win over Christ. Corr joined her after eliminating Burwell 8-3.
Miller had a rough start at the beginning of the final match. Corr took a four-rack lead at 6-2, but Miller refused to go down without a fight. She started building momentum and didn’t allow Corr to win another. Miller claimed her second straight JPNEWT title 8-6.
TD Briana Miller wanted to thank the owners and staff of Champion Billiards Cafe for their hospitality and taking care of the players, as well as their sponsors J Pechauer Custom Cues, Fort Worth Billiards Superstore, PA Pro-Am Pool, Onboard Sportswear, George Hammerbacher, and Turtle Racks by Mezz Cues.
The next stop on the JPNEWT, scheduled for May 6-7, will be hosted by Yale Billiards in Wallingford, CT.
2023 STOP 3
May 6-7
Yale Billiards
Wallingford CT
- 45 player field -
1st $750 Rachel Lang
2nd $540 Stacie Bourbeau
3rd $450 Alyssa Solt
4th $340 Emily Duddy
5/6 $220 Emily Smith
$220 Erica Test ***
7/8 $125 Carol V Clark
$125 Dawn Fox
9-12 $ 75 Angela Tierney
$ 75 Giovanna Napolitano
$ 75 Jennifer Tully
$ 75 Mindy Maialetti
L-R: Stacie Bourbeau, Alyssa Solt, Rachel Lang, Emily Duddy
L-R: Tour Director Briana Miller, Stacie Bourbeau, Room owner Bobby Hilton, Rachel Lang
LANG GOES UNDEFEATED AT YALE BILLIARDS IN WALLINGFORD, CT TO CLAIM HER FIRST JPNEWT TITLE
~ Skip Maloney, AZBilliards, May 9 2023
The most obvious difference in the J. Pechauer Northeast Women’s Tour (JPNEWT) since Briana Miller took over as its tour director at the beginning of this year, has been the tour’s geographic ‘reach.’ Where before, the tour’s schedule played out primarily in Maryland and Virginia (seven out of 10 stops in ’21 and ’22), this year’s 10-event schedule features two stops each in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and New Jersey, while adding a stop at Snooker’s in Providence, Rhode Island and just this past weekend (May 6-7), a stop at Yale Billiards in Wallingford, CT. Four of the 10 locations are new venues for the tour this year.
Among the more obvious benefits of this expanded tour footprint is a notable increase in new (or at least, less-seen) faces, exemplified by Rachel Lang, whose listed residence is Catskill, NY and in this year alone, has cashed in three events on the Predator Tri-State Tour and won an event on the Garden State Pool Tour. She has now won her first event on the JPNEWT, facilitated in part by the fact that while a trip to Triple Nines in Elkridge, MD (a previous, twice-per-year stop on the tour) would take about five hours. Yale Billiards in Wallingford, CT would normally take about two hours.
For this most recent JPNEWT stop, runner-up Stacie Bourbeau, who hails from Orange, MA, would have had to drive for just over six hours to reach Elkridge, MD, but under two hours to get to Wallingford, CT. Bourbeau has a history with the JPNEWT, but not since 2010, her best recorded earnings year, when she won the tour’s fifth stop. In previous years, she’d been a regular on the New England Women’s 9-Ball Tour.
Last year (’22), Bourbeau won the APA Women’s Amateur Championship. She and Lang, who finished as runner-up, met twice in the event; Lang winning the first match, Bourbeau the second.
This year, on the JPNEWT’s third stop, they met only once, in the finals of the $1,000-added event that drew 45 entrants to Yale Billiards. Lang got by Mollee Kranes (1), Susan White (0), Erica Testa (5) and Mindy Maialetti (4) to arrive at a winners’ side semifinal against Emily Duddy, who, by the way, finished in the tie for 7th place in the JPNEWT event won by Bourbeau back in 2010. Bourbeau, in the meantime, after being awarded an opening round bye, was defeated in her first match by Testa 7-4 and was off to the loss-side races where she would proceed to win nine in a row and challenge Lang in the finals. She played (11) and won (9) more matches overall, more than anyone in the tournament.
Advancing to meet Lang in the hot seat match was Alyssa Solt, Maryland State’s current Women’s Bar-box 8-Ball Champion. After an opening round bye, she survived an opening round, double-hill battle versus
Renee Lafferty, downed Catherine Fiorilla 7-5 and Giovanna Napolitano 7-2 to arrive at her winners’ side semifinal against Emily Cady.
The two ‘Emily’s went west. Solt sent Cady to the loss side 7-3, as Lang defeated Duddy 7-2. Lang grabbed the hot seat 7-2 over Solt and began a three-hour wait to face Bourbeau in the finals.
On the loss side, Bourbeau was wreaking havoc. Through the first five matches of her nine-match trip on that side of the bracket, she gave up a total of only five racks; three shutouts, two matches in which she gave up a single rack and one match (against Christine Pross) in which she gave up three. She’d recently eliminated Angela Tierney (0) and Dawn Fox (1) to draw Cady. Emily Duddy picked up Erica Testa, who, after being defeated by Lang, went on a more modest four-match, loss-side streak that had involved two double-hill wins and the recent elimination of Napolitano (1) and Carol V. Clark (one of the double-hill wins).
Bourbeau downed Cady 7-5 and advanced to the quarterfinals. Duddy and Testa locked up in a double-hill fight that eventually allowed Duddy to join Bourbeau.
Bourbeau chalked up her eighth loss-side win, eliminating Duddy 7-3 and then gave up just a single rack to Solt in the semifinals. The two 2022 APA National Women’s Amateur Champions set up to go head-to-head, again, in the finals of the JPNEWT’s third 2023 event.
In that APA Amateur event, 15 months ago at Stroker’s in Palm Harbor, FL, Lang and Bourbeau advanced through a 46-entrant field to square off for the first time in the hot seat match. Lang prevailed, sending Bourbeau off to the semifinals against JPNEWT veteran, Tina Malm. Bourbeau defeated Malm and then, downed Lang 9-4 in the finals to secure her second APA Amateur Championship title (first in 2015).
With that final match loss, echoing around somewhere in her head, Lang got down to the business of shelving the past and facing the present. The woman who had won four out of every five games she’d played on the loss side to get to the finals (63 of 77), was held to a single rack in those finals by the woman who’d been more or less waiting for her to get there. Lang completed her undefeated run to claim her first JPNEWT title 7-1.
Tour director Briana Miller thanked the ownership and staff at Yale Billiards for their hospitality, as well as title sponsor J. Pechauer Custom Cues, Fort Worth Billiards, PA ProAm Pool and The Sharkstream (for the stream). The next stop on the JPNEWT, scheduled for Saturday, June 17, will be a $500-added event, hosted by Bluegrass Billiards in Philadelphia, PA.