Rachel Lang, Briana Miller and Ashley Benoit
Having just completed her best (recorded with us) earnings year at the tables, Briana Miller opened up her 2024 campaign at the WPBA’s Iron City Billiards Invitational in Birmingham, AL a little over a week ago (Jan. 10-14). The eventual winner, Allison Fisher sent her to the loss side of that bracket and the eventual runner-up, Tzu-Chien Wei sent her home in the tie for 9th place. This past weekend (Jan. 20-21), Miller signed on to the $1,000-added, Blufelt CT State Women’s 9-Ball Championships, which drew 63 entrants to Racks Billiards and Bar in Vernon, CT. After losing the battle for the hot seat, Miller came back from the semifinals to down Ashley Benoit in the finals and claim the event title. In effect, Briana Miller has picked up the equivalent of a little over 13% of her 2023 earnings at the tables in the first weekend of 2024 and brought that up to near 30% of last year’s figure on the second weekend.
Miller, who is Tour Director of the J. Pechauer Northeast Women’s Tour, won eight of that tour’s 11 stops last year, including a cash-prize split with Kia Burwell, and was runner-up in another. And the 2024 season won’t begin until March. After some time away from the tables between 2019 and 2022, Miller has come back stronger and her current ranking among WPBA competitors (#50, based on only two events over the past two years) is likely to climb.
In Birmingham, Miller didn’t have a rack chalked up against her until the third round of play. She’d shut out both Cheryl Williamson and Lauren Casey, before Christine Cockrell and Dawn Luz both recorded three against her. Miller drew Jocelyn Hurley in one of the winners’ side semifinals. Ashley Benoit in the meantime gave up one rack each to Farrah Kirk and Darlene Kelly, before giving up three to Kymberly Barta, another one to Elise Vaillancourt and drawing Rachel Lang in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Miller got into the hot seat match with a 7-2 win over Hurley, as Benoit was busy downing Lang 7-3. Benoit claimed the hot seat 7-2 and sat back to await Miller’s return.
On the loss side, Erica Testa, who’d lost an opening-round match to Vaillancourt, went on a seven-match, loss-side winning streak that had included two double hill wins (vs. Diana Perugino and Giovanna Napolitano), two shutouts (Linda Morton and Dawn Luz) and three 5-1 victories over Alexandra Laliberte, Megan Imrie and Renee Laferty. She drew Lang, coming over from the winners’ side semifinal. Hurley picked up Stacie Bourbeau, who’d lost a winners’ side quarterfinal to Lang and downed Pamela Burgon and Christine Cockrell, both 5-3.
Lang and Bourbeau, arranging for their rematch in the quarterfinals, gave up only a single rack between them; Lang gave it up to Testa, while Bourbeau was shutting out Hurley. Lang defeated Bourbeau a second time, 5-3, only to run into Miller in the semifinals.
Miller defeated Lang 5-2 and earned herself a second shot at Benoit. Time ran out and with the venue preparing to close, Miller and Benoit agreed to a split of the top two prizes, and competed in a reduced race to 3 for the event title. Miller gave up only a single rack to Benoit in the shortened final and claimed it.
“Overall,” noted Tour Director Eric Tang in a Facebook post, “the Blufelt CT State Women’s Barbox Championships was a thrilling, prestigious event that celebrated the skill and talent of female pool players.
“It not only provided a platform for competition,” he added, “ but also fostered a sense of community and camaraderie within the women’s pool community, promoting the growth and recognition of women in the sport.”
Tour director Eric Tang thanked Pete Brown and Rack’s staff, along with Wayne Harriman (Harriman Real Estate, LLC), Josh Michalski, Craig Eagleson (Lawn Care and Services), Referee Junior Cruz, and Photographer Christopher Duff. Tang also thanked the ‘lovely ladies’ who competed and event spectators.
“Without you guys,” he noted in his Facebook post, “there wouldn’t (have been) this Blufelt event.”
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