Rachel Lang and Julie Madlener
At the start, pool careers tend to work off a long fuse. It’s lit the first time a competitor wins cash, generally on a regional tour. The fuse goes through stages where it sparkles brightly, and then, can sometimes dim to a small, orange glow, as it sizzles its way toward the ‘explosion;’ a first major tournament victory. The confidence force of that event lights another fuse, headed for a second tournament victory, during which confidence can ebb and flow its way through the realization that you can’t win ‘em all. Progress in pool can generally be measured in the length of recurrent fuses, as confidence builds, muscle memory settles into a comfortable routine, and the distance between the major victories gets shorter and shorter. And of course, the cash flow increases, aiming for a point in time when it becomes common sense to declare it a career and settle in to keeping it that way.
The first time that Catskill, NY’s Rachel Lang recorded a victory (with AZBilliards in 2015), she made it all the way to the hot seat match in a mixed-gender event on the NYC metro-area’s Tri-State Tour. She put up a double-hill fight against a veteran Tri-State competitor, Miguel Laboy, who was looking for his second Tri-State Tour victory of that 2015-2016 season. Laboy prevailed but was defeated in the finals by Richard Ng, who’d survived an almost-double-hill match (7-5) against Lang in the semifinals.
Two years later, with no recorded cash finishes in between, Lang returned and started 2017 with her first major tournament win, going undefeated in another mixed-gender Tri-State Tour stop. A week later, same tour, she finished as runner-up and seven months later, finished 4th at the US Bar Box Ladies 8-Ball Championships in Las Vegas. Thanks in part to the pandemic, she recorded only one cash finish in the next four years (2019; 4th at the West Coast Challenge, Women’s Division).
Last year, that second ‘fuse,’ longer than the first, reached her second major win ‘explosion’ at a Ladies event on the Garden State Pool Tour, at which she lost her opening match and won six on the loss side before defeating Jennifer “Jay” Pass in the finals. She was also runner-up at the APA’s 2022 US Amateur event and was the Predator Tri-State Tour’s Women’s Player of the Year.
This year, with a much shorter fuse, Lang is already in her best recorded earnings year. She opened in January with a runner-up finish to Pascal Dufresne on the Predator Tri-State Tour and a week later, recorded her second (this time, mixed-gender) victory on the Garden State Pool Tour. She would later record a 3rd and 9th place finish on the Predator Tri-State before electing to compete on the J. Pechauer Northeast Women’s Tour at a May stop in Connecticut at which she went undefeated to claim her first JPNEWT title.
This past weekend (Sat., Sept. 9), she chalked up her third straight Garden State Pool Tour win, going undefeated at a Women’s Invitational Amateur Championship. The $200-added event drew 23 entrants to Shooters Family Billiards in Wayne, NJ, the same location at which she’d chalked up her second Garden State win last year.
Sizzling along, this short fuse (burning on races to 8) began its last leap to the finish with a bye before shutting out her older sister, Cassandra Lang-Tritto, giving up three to Brenda C. Martinez and arriving at a winners’ side semifinal against Jamie Ochoa. Mercedes Uribe, in the meantime, sent Brooke Nasta (3), Nancy Moy (0) and Ginny Lewis (4) to arrive at her winners’ side semifinal against Julie Madlener.
Lang advanced to the hot seat match with an 8-2 win over Ochoa. Uribe joined her after a double-hill win versus Madlener; 4-7, Madlener racing to 8. With Lang racing to 8 as well, Uribe brought a second straight match to double hill, before Lang prevailed to sit in the hot seat.
On the loss side, “Jay” Pass, looking to avenge her loss to Lang in the finals of their 2022 meetup, picked up Ochoa. Pass and Lang would have played earlier, had Brenda Martinez not sent Pass to the loss side in the second round. Pass set out on a five-match, loss-side streak that had recently eliminated Ginny Lewis and Brooke Nasta, both 7-3. Madlener drew Susan Weiman, who’d been sent to the loss side by Ochoa in a winners’ side quarterfinal. She then defeated Ashima Butler 5-2 and shut out Brenda Martinez to face Madlener.
Madlener downed Weiman 8-2, as Pass shut out Ochoa. Madlener leap-frogged over Pass, who forfeited out of the quarterfinals, and advanced to a rematch against Uribe in the semifinals. Madlener eliminated Uribe (racing to 4) 8-2.
When Madlener came into the finals, Lang’s ‘race’ goal was reduced by set calculations from ‘8’ to ‘7’ due to the narrow, Fargo Rate differential between her and Madlener, who remained at the ‘5’ she’d played as in the semifinals. The match went double-hill. Lang chalked up the seven she needed and claimed her third straight overall Garden State title and her second in ladies’ competition.
Tour director Dave Fitzpatrick thanked Kris Kemp and her Shooter’s Family Billiards staff for their hospitality, as well as sponsors In the Box, Billiard Engineering, John Bender Cues, Flowers Cues and Cases, Off the Rail Apparel, Kamui, Outsville & World Beaters Apparel. The next event on the Garden State Pool Tour, scheduled for this weekend (Sept. 16 & 17), an Open event, using R-6 Fargo races, will be hosted by Players Billiards in Eatontown, NJ.
Further information about the Garden State Pool Tour can be found on its Web site – www.gsptnj.com
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