Britanny Beland & Michelle Dunn
Beland’s husband, Kerry Beland, splits top prizes in a Split Bracket main event
We do love our ‘Cinderella’ stories, those ‘feel good’ tales where the wanna-be’s overcome the already-are’s. They’re especially magnetic if the teams or individuals involved are actually women. This past weekend (Sun., Feb. 9), Jersey Girl Billiards ran a Music City quartet of events out of the JOB Billiard Club in Madison, TN – one each, High and Low (rated) bracket, a Second Chance Tournament and the fourth stop on its Natural Born Women series. We’ve separated out the Women’s Tour, which drew 21 entrants, so it doesn’t have to share space with the 64-entrant High Bracket and 128-entrant Low Bracket report, which will appear later (as one report), elsewhere on these pages.
What was striking about Stop #4 on the Natural Born Women’s series was that late in the game(s), the typical Cinderella story took a sharp turn, threatening the happy ending. Cinderella, in the person of Brittany Beland, looking to claim her first recorded cash payout in a pool tournament, had to face Michelle Dunn, with a 16-year history of cash payments in pool tournaments, that had, as recently as a month ago (Jan. 8-12), included a 3rd place finish, behind Eylul Kibaroglu and Tina Malm, at the Music City Classic’s Ladies division tournament.
The story began with Belland and Briana Laine heading out for a meetup in the hot seat match. Belland and Dunn were working on the same side of the 32-player bracket, which would have put them into a match against each other in one of the winners’ side semifinals. Belland opened with a 4-1 victory over Remy Fitzgerald, survived a double-hill fight versus Kim Hernandez Pierce, chalked up a shutout over Amanda Cole to draw Grace Garretson in one of the winners’ side semifinals. Garretson had just survived a double-hill victory over Dunn in one of the winners’ side quarterfinals.
Laine, in the meantime, arrived at her winners’ side semifinal match against Desiree Patterson sporting an aggregate score of 11-2. She’d given up a single rack to Amanda Huff for starters, shut out Savannah Parker for an encore and then gave up another ‘one’ to Keira Graves to draw Patterson.
‘Cinderella’ got into the hot seat match with a 3-1 victory over Garretson (Garretson racing to 4). After a double-hill win over Patterson, Laine advanced to join her. Beland won the double-hill hot seat match against Laine, putting her a single step away from the ‘happy ending.’
Meanwhile (based on digitalpool ‘time stamps’ on the bracket), Michelle Dunn had already won the first of her five loss-side matches, defeating JC Schlager, double hill. About 15 minutes after Beland had grabbed the hot seat, Dunn eliminated Savannah Parker 5-1 and drew Patterson, fresh off her loss to Laine. Garretson came over to the loss side and ran into Kim Hernandez Pierce, who (racing to 8) had followed her loss to Beland with two straight, double-hill wins over April Bailey and Keira Graves (both racing to 3) and a shutout over Ashton Dooley (also racing to 3).
Both battles for advancement to the quarterfinals went double hill. Of the four competitors in the 5th/6th matches, the two candidates who likely had the best chance at challenging Cinderella on her hot seat throne, were Pierce (racing to 6) and Dunn (racing to 5). Both of their opponents were racing to 3. Dunn won her double-hill match over Patterson 5-2. Pierce, however, fell to Garretson, whose 3-5 win put her into the quarterfinals against Dunn. In a straight-up race to 3, Dunn took the quarterfinal match over Garretson 3-1. Dunn completed her loss-side trip with a 4-1 victory over Laine in the semifinals.
The Cinderella metaphor that has characterized the report up to now has been based primarily on the recorded history of its finalists, with Dunn getting the competitive ‘edge’ because of the number of years during which she has been recording her ‘payout’ exploits at the tables, while Beland (as Cinderella) has been in search of her first recorded payout (of which she had already been assured by the time she won her winners’ side semifinal). The ‘true’ back story of the double-elimination final was that the two women were separated by only 95 FargoRate points. Dunn had the ‘edge’ in that department, as well, sporting her 495 rate against Beland’s 400. Jersey Girl Billiards’ events are governed by something of a hybrid rating system that employs information about a player from a variety of sources, including their FargoRate, along with directly-observed skills at the tables and ratings that the competitors have employed in other events.
During this event, Dunn raced to 3, 4 and 5, dependent on her opponent. In the double-elimination final, she raced to 4, while Brittany Beland (who competed as a 3 or 4 throughout) raced to 3. FargoRate calculations of odds, based on their actual FargoRates, gave Beland a 1 in 3 chance of winning (33.5% vs. 66.5%).
Cinderella got smoked in the first set of the double-elimination final; shut out 4-0. But the story didn’t end there. She not only rallied to win the second set, she turned the tables on Dunn, shutting her out 3-0 to claim the ‘happy ending’ event title.
As noted in the sub-headline above, Beland’s husband split the Main event’s top two prizes with William Butler. Like his wife, Kerry Beland was looking for his first ‘official’ (recorded with us) payout in a pool tournament, so in a way, that was kind of a ‘Cinderfella’ story. We will not be stretching the metaphor to accommodate the 192-entrant Main event report, which, as also noted will appear in these pages soon.
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