Stacie Bourbeau, Alyssa Solt, Rachel Lang and Emily Duddy
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 JPNEWT’s predecessor, the NE 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 than anyone in the tournament.
Advancing to meet Lang in the hot seat match was Alyssa Solt, Maryland State’s current Women’s 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.
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