Meng-Hsia (Bean) Hung
The Inaugural Pennsylvania State Women’s 9-Ball Championship presented by PA Pro-Am Pool and the J. Pechauer Northeast Women’s Tour (JPNEWT) was held this past weekend (Sept 16th-Sept 17th) at Bluegrass Billiards in Philadelphia, PA. The $1,500-added event for the new, highly coveted “Doris Sciarra Women’s Championship Belt,” supplied by TrophySmack.com., drew 65 women from four different countries and 12 states. When the dust settled, Bean Hung from Brisbane, Australia had gone undefeated, besting JPNEWT’s tour director, Briana Miller in the finals to claim the event title.
Hung opened with a surprising first-round, double hill match against Giovanna Napolitano. She advanced from that promising start to give up only five racks over the next four matches. She shut out Kristen Gore and gave up two to Eugenia Gyftopoulos before coming up against Miller for the first time in a winners’ side quarterfinal. Hung took the first of her two against Miller 6-2 and then, advanced to the hot seat match with a 6-1 victory over junior competitor Sofia Mast in one of the winners’ side semifinals.
Aside from the main story of the finalists and their immediate predecessors, Mast and Brianna Aristeo were two of the event’s other major stories. Mast, known as The Pink Dagger, is a seasoned-veteran, not yet out of high school, who arrived to the winners’ side semifinal against eventual winner Hung, having given up only four racks to reach her and securing advancement to Day Two of the event.
Aristeo entered the tournament with an APA skill level of 3, having never played in a tournament before, let alone a state championship with players of the caliber she faced at this one. She came with a personal goal of winning a single match. She won three on Day One by an aggregate score of 18-10 and then, in a winners’ side quarterfinal, drew Karen Corr. Nerves no doubt played a role in her shutout loss to the legendary Hall of Famer. Aristeo went on to win two on the loss side. Her second, on Day Two, was her last as she fell to Giovanna Napolitano 5-1 and finished in the tie for 7th place.
Corr followed her victory over Aristeo, with a winners’ side semifinal, 6-1 win over Lai Li, which put her into the hot seat match against Hung. In a match that could have been a Main Event at any women’s tournament in the world, Bean downed the Irish Invader 6-1 to claim the hot seat.
Meanwhile on the loss side, Briana Miller was running a five-match gauntlet of races to 5, against top-notch competitors, destined to get her into a rematch against Hung in the finals. She started with a 5-2 win over the famed Dawn Hopkins and then, defeated WPBA star Emily Duddy in a double-hill thriller. She picked up Lai Li, fresh from her winners’ side semifinal loss to Corr, defeated her 5-1 and then, eliminated The Pink Dagger, Sofia Mast, 5-1 in the quarterfinals.
Next up for Miller, Karen Corr in the semifinals. Though likely not as ‘breezy’ as the score might indicate, Miller, who was five-years-old when Corr won her first WPBA title in 2000, defeated Corr 5-2 and turned to her rematch against Hung in the finals. Miller and Hung squared off with a crowd of over 100 in attendance and over 300 watching on the PA Pro-Am Live stream which collected $1,000 in donations during the broadcast towards the University of Pennsylvania’s Cancer Research center. Bean prevailed to complete her undefeated run with a hard-fought 9-6 win to claim the inaugural Pennsylvania State Women’s 9-Ball Championship title.
Tournament Directors Frank Maialetti and Briana Miller thanked the ownership and staff at Bluegrass Billiards for their hospitality along with sponsors Integrity Cues, J. Pechauer Custom Cues, Kamui Tips, TrophySmack.com, Forth Worth Billiards Superstore, InTheBox Sports Apparel, Salotto and Advanced Pool Instructor George Hammerbacher. The next event for PA Pro-Am Pool is the $2,500 added Pennsylvania State 9-Ball Open at Bluegrass Billiards in Philadelphia, PA on Oct 7th-8th. The next event on the JPNEWT (Stop #8), scheduled for the weekend of Oct. 21-22, will be a $1,000-added event, hosted by Eagle Billiards in Dickson City, PA on October 21st -22nd .
Live stream recordings of the Pennsylvania State Women’s 9-Ball Championship matches, presented by PA Pro-Am Pool and the JPNEWT can be seen at youtube.com/@paproampool. Brackets for the event can be found at https://digitalpool.com/tournaments/pa-state-womens-9-ball-championship-hosted-by-jpnewt-and-pa-pro-am-pool/overview
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