Briana Miller and Dawn Luz
There are only so many ways that one can approach a report on a consistent winner. One can note, as an example, that the J. Pechauer Northeast Women’s Tour director, Briana Miller has “once again, chalked up a win on the tour,” and go on to mention how many times she’s won this year. As of this past weekend (Nov. 4-5), that number is up to seven. She’s won 15 of 19 tour stops (two splits) over the past two years, including her undefeated run in this past weekend’s $1,000-added event which drew a capped-at-32 number of entrants to Stroker’s Bar & Billiards in Pelham, NH.
She is not unbeatable, of course. Nobody gets to wear that ‘medal.’ She had a seriously odd finish (13th) at this year’s third stop in May and finished as runner-up to Bean Hung in September. She was runner-up to Caroline Pao and Kia Burwell in 2022. Not exactly a comfort to competitors stepping into an event with her name on the roster, although there is that aspect of inspiration for potential opponents; players getting ‘fired up’ trying to throw a monkey-wrench into the machinery of her dominance.
There is, too, an aspect of this remarkable run of tour victories which has to do with her recent ascent to director of the tour. In that role over the past year, Miller has increased the tour’s geographic reach beyond its previous base in Maryland, expanding it to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, and, for the second time this year (this past weekend), New Hampshire. This has had a way of attracting new players to the tour, the downside of which is that the newer competitors tend toward a lower skill level for whom Miller’s obvious skills and experience represent a ‘tougher nut to crack’ than they would otherwise encounter. All but three of this past weekend’s competitors (Erica Testa, Amanda Laverriere and Catherine Fiorilla) came into the event with Fargo Rates that were 200 points or lower than Miller’s 669. The upside to the expanded reach is that the newer competitors, like everybody else who competes in the sport, tend to get better, only when they’re exposing themselves to a competition level that’s higher than the ones that they’ve been used to.
All that said, here’s how the weekend played out. Miller seems to get stronger as an event progresses; this event being a case in point. She was strong coming in, mind you, giving up only three racks to Amanda Soucy, two to Catherine Ong and in a winners’ side quarterfinal, three to her closest Fargo-rated competitor (at 562), Erica Testa. From that point, over the next 23 games to her claiming the event title, Miller gave up only two racks. She gave up the first of those two in a winners’ side semifinal to her second-closest, Fargo-rated opponent, Amanda Laverriere (at 500) and advanced to the hot seat match.
Meanwhile, Becca Ellis was winding her way through the field to join Miller in the hot seat battle. Ellis got by Jozy Vienneau (3), Christal Heath in a double-hill match, and Jenn Sylvester (1) to arrive and defeat her winners’ side semifinal opponent, Dawn Luz 7-4. In the battle for the hot seat, Miller allowed Ellis to chalk up a second rack against her, claiming the seat 7-1.
Luz came to the loss side and picked up Testa, who’d followed her loss to Miller with victories over Stacy Hamel 7-1 and Stephanie Rickett 7-2. Laverriere came over and picked up Catherine Fiorilla, who’d been shut out in her opening match by Luz and was working on a five-match, loss-side winning streak that had recently eliminated Jenn Sylvester 7-3 and Rachelle Rainey 7-5.
Luz and Testa battled back and forth to double hill, before Luz prevailed and advanced to the quarterfinals. She was joined by Laverriere, who’d defeated Fiorilla 7-4. Luz took care of Laverriere in those quarterfinals 7-3.
It was only the fourth time that Luz had competed on the 2023 tour, having finished 33rd in May and 25th in July. She took a major step forward when she finished in the tie for 9th place on the tour’s previous stop, a little over a week ago in Philadelphia at the PA State Women’s 8-Ball Championships. She shared that finish place with the woman she faced and defeated in the quarterfinals at this event, Amanda Laverriere.
In a semifinal that came within a game of double hill, Luz advanced to defeat Ellis 7-5. In what was already her highest finish on the tour and only her second, recorded cash finish in a tournament anywhere (she’d finished 3rd in a virtual event on the Ride the 9 Tour in 2021), Luz stepped into her first known final, against Miller.
It didn’t go well for her. The four-hour wait between the conclusion of the hot seat match and the end of the semifinal had no apparent effect on Miller. She denied Luz even a single rack in claiming her seventh 2023 JPNEWT title.
In her role as tour director, Miller thanked the ownership and staff at Stroker’s Bar & Billiards, as well as title sponsor J. Pechauer Custom Cues, Fort Worth Billiards Superstore, Onboard Sportswear, PA ProAm Pool (for livestreaming), Mezz Cues and George Hammerbacher (Advanced Pool Instructor).
The next stop on the JPNEWT will be its season finale, scheduled for the weekend of Dec. 2-3 at Players Billiards Café in Eatontown, NJ.
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