Forced to forfeit an opening round match because she was late in arriving, Karen Corr started her August 10-11 weekend on the J. Pechauer Northeast Women’s Tour on the loss side of the bracket. This was good news/bad news for some of the tour regulars. For a few of the tour’s top competitors who would potentially have faced her in one of the four winners’ side matches and possibly, the hot seat match, it was likely a comfort to have her toiling away on the loss side, early. For those competitors who would normally toil away on the loss side, not having to worry about facing Corr until an undefined ‘later,’ which could be the event final, it was more of a bad news scenario. It meant that any hope that a competitor had of reaching the final was likely to necessitate facing Corr first, although at least some of the loss-side women could look forward to a few matches before that became an issue.
In any event, Corr ended up winning seven on the loss side, three of which entailed giving up a total of only two racks. She then defeated Lai Li in the finals to claim her second 2019 JPNEWT title. It was the second JPNEWT stop in a row which featured a winner who’d won seven on the loss side to defeat a hot seat occupant; Caroline Pao defeated TD Linda Shea in the finals last month. The $1,400-added (by Coins of the Realm) event this past weekend drew 22 entrants to Triple Nines Bar & Billiards in Elkridge, MD.
In an expression usually employed to introduce loss-side action . . . . meanwhile, on the winners’ side, 21 other competitors wended their way towards the hot seat match, including eight of the tour’s top ten players in the tour standings. Kathleen Lawless (#6) and Lai Li (#3) would emerge to do battle for the hot seat. After an opening round bye, Lawless opened with a double hill win over Nicole Christ and a 7-2 win over Teri Thomas to face Elaine Wilson (#11) in one of the winners’ side semfinals. Li would face the tour’s #1, Linda Shea, in the opening round and defeat her 7-4. She went on to down Sharon O’Hanlon 7-1 and Leslie Furr 7-2 to face Nicole King (#2) in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Lawless moved on to the hot seat match with a 7-3 win over Wilson and was joined by Li, who’d sent King to the loss side 7-5. Li claimed the hot seat 7-5 to wait on the arrival of Corr.
Over her first 23 loss-side games, Corr gave up only two racks; one each to Kim McKenna and Leslie Furr, while, in the middle, she gave up none at all Noel Rima. Then she came up against Linda Shea, who, like her, was riding a three-game, loss-side winning streak. Shea would chalk up more racks against Corr (5) than anyone in the tournament and move on to pick up Elaine Wilson. King drew Kelly Wyatt, who was making her second appearance on the tour, having finished in the tie for 9th place in May and was in the midst of a four-match, loss-side winning streak. She’d recently defeated Teri Thomas and Ceci Strain, both 7-3 to draw King.
Wyatt made it five in a row with a 7-5 victory over King, as Corr was busy eliminating Elaine Wilson 7-3. Corr ended Wyatt’s loss-side run 7-1 in the quarterfinals. She then downed Lawless in the semifinals 7-2, bringing her loss-side (and as it happened, event) aggregate score to 49-13. She the defeated Li in the finals 7-3 to claim her second 2019 JPNEWT title.
Linda Shea thanked the ownership and staff at Triple Nines and Coins of the Realm, as well as title sponsor J. Pechauer Custom Cues, angle aim Art (Britanya Rapp), The Turtle Rack, Baltimore City Cues, and Billy Ray Bunn Cue Repair. The next stop on the JPNEWT, scheduled for September 14-15, will be hosted by First Break Bar & Grill in Sterling, VA.
Going into the finals of the July 27-28 stop on the J. Pechauer Northeast Women’s Tour (JPNEWT), Caroline Pao had something of a dismal record on the winners’ side of the bracket. Of course, she’d only played twice, downing C.C. Strain 7-1 and then, falling to tour director Linda Shea 4-7 (11-8; 57%). Over the next seven matches on the loss side of the bracket, Pao gave up an average of less than two racks per match (1.43) and chalked up a remarkable aggregate score of 49-10 (83%), that included back-to-back shutouts in the quarter and semifinals. She capped the loss-side performance with a 9-4 victory over Shea in the finals to claim the event title. The $1,600-added event drew 28 entrants to Champion Billiards Sports Bar in Frederick, MD.
Shea and Pao had distinctly different opening rounds, which may have contributed to their first matchup in the second round. Pao gave up only a single rack to Ceci Strain, while Shea locked up in a double hill fight that did eventually send Melissa Mason to the loss side. Odds were likely to have been good that Shea and Pao would have a double hill fight, but they didn’t. Shea prevailed 7-4, adding two matches to Pao’s event total.
With Pao at work on the loss side, Shea, the tour’s current #1-ranked player, advanced through Teri Thomas 7-2 and arrived at a winners’ side semifinal against the tour’s current #2-ranked player, Nicole King. Lai Li, in the meantime, the tour’s #3-ranked competitor, having dispatched Sharon O’Hanlon, Judie Wilson and Elaine Wilson to the loss side, faced Kia Sidbury (#7) in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Shea and Li advanced to the hot seat match 7-5 over King and Sidbury. Shea downed Li 7-2 to claim the hot seat, and waited on the fateful return of Pao.
On the loss side, it was King who drew Pao, four matches into her winning streak. At that point in time, Pao had given up only seven racks; one each to Noel Rima, Sharon O’Hanlon and Christie Hurdel and four to Anita Sowers. Sidbury drew Thomas, who, following her defeat at the hands of Shea, had eliminated Eugenia Gyftopoulos 7-5 and survived a double hill fight against Kathleen Lawless.
Thomas and Sidbury locked up in a double hill fight for advancement to the quarterfinals. Thomas, who’d already improved on her two previous appearances on the 2019 tour (finishing 17th in March and May), downed Sidbury to meet Pao, who’d defeated King 7-3.
Pao then chalked up two straight shutouts, against Thomas in the quarterfinals and Lai Li in the semifinals, to earn a shot against the so-far undefeated hot seat occupant, Shea, who came into the finals with a 72% game-winning percentage. Thanks to her 83% loss-side performance and her two winners’ side matches, Pao entered the finals at 76%. Pao completed her run with a 9-4 victory over Shea in the finals.
Tour director Linda Shea thanked the ownership and staff at Champion Billiards and Sports Bar and Coins of the Realm, as well as title sponsor J. Pechauer Custom Cues, angle aim Art (Britanya Rapp), The Turtle Rack, Baltimore City Cues, and Billy Ray Bunn Cue Repair. The next stop on the JPNEWT, scheduled for August 10-11, will be hosted by Triple Nines Bar & Billiards in Elkridge, MD.
Briana Miller ended up winning just over three out of every four racks that she played during the third stop (her first appearance this year) on the J. Pechauer Northeast Women's Tour. But for three percentage points, that racks-against average would have been four out of every five. She went undefeated through a field of 23, on-hand for the $500-added (from Coins of the Realm) event, hosted by First Break Cafe and Billiards in Sterling, VA on the weekend of May 20-21.
After allowing only four racks to be scored against her through her first three matches, including an 8-1 victory over the tour's #1-ranked competitor, tour director Linda Shea, and a shutout over Kia Sidbury in the third round, Miller moved into what would prove to be her toughest challenge; a winners' side semifinal against Teri Thomas. Gwen Townsend, in the meantime, who'd been awarded an opening round bye, survived a second round double hill fight against Terri Stovall, defeated Britanya Rapp 7-3, and moved into the other winners' side semifinal against Rumi Brown.
Thomas chalked up two more racks against Miller (6) than her previous three opponents combined (4), but they weren't enough, as Miller advanced to the hot seat match 8-6. She was joined by Townsend, who'd sent Brown to the loss side 7-4. Miller shut Townsend out in that hot seat match, and waited on the return of Nicole King.
King, after a second round defeat at the hands of Rapp, went on a six-match, loss-side streak that gave her a shot against Miller in the finals. Three victories into that run, she eliminated Judie Wilson 7-5, and Anita Sowers 7-2, to draw Brown. Thomas picked up Jenn Keeney, who, going into the match, occupied the tour ranking's second spot, behind Shea (she was runner-up to Shea's victory on the tour's second stop). Keeney had been awarded an opening round bye and fell to Thomas 7-2 in the second round. Like King, Keeney was on a six-match, loss-side streak that would propel her as far as the quarterfinals. She'd gotten by Rapp 8-4 and Rita Thakur 7-3 to draw the re-match against Thomas.
As befitted a loss-side rematch, Keeney and Thomas battled to double hill before Keeney won it to advance to the quarterfinals. She was joined by King, who'd eliminated Brown 7-2. At the conclusion of her second straight double hill match, Keeney's loss-side streak had come to an end.
King followed up by ending Townsend's single-match loss-side journey with a 7-3 win in the semifinals. King entered this third stop on the tour with a .500 record through its first two events (4-4), finishing 9th and 7th previously. Moving into the finals, she was guaranteed at least the tour's third spot in the rankings, behind Shea and Keeney, whose fourth place finish kept her in the #2 spot. A win would have moved King into the second spot, five ranking points ahead of Keeney. Miller, appearing in her first JPNEWT event of the year, completed her undefeated run with a 7-3 win over King in the finals. The victory put Miller in sixth place in the tour rankings, behind Shea, Keeney, King, Meredith Lynch and Carol V. Clark. Miller, having already received an invitation to a North American Pool Tour Division 1 Pro event, deferred the qualifying spot for this event's winner to Nicole King.
Linda Shea continues to be a force to reckon with on her own J. Pechauer Northeast Women's Tour, which opened its 2016 season on the weekend of March 19-20. She advanced to the hot seat match in the $1,000-added ($500 from Coins of the Realm) event which drew 29 entrants to Triple Nines Bar & Billiards in Elkridge, MD, and was sent to the semifinals by Kim Whitman. She returned from those semifinals to defeat Whitman in an extended race-to-9 final, chalking up her first 2016 tour win.
Following victories over Teri Thomas, Nicole King, and Colleen Shoop, Shea advanced to a winners' side semifinal versus Nicole Nester. Whitman, in the meantime, who'd survived a double hill opening round battle against Delia Mocanu, went on to defeat Sharon O'Hanlon, and Kia Sidbury to end up in the other winners' side semifinal against Nicole Monaco. Shea and Whitman got into the hot seat match with identical 7-4 victories over Nicoles Nester and Monaco. Whitman claimed the hot seat 7-3 over Shea and waited on her return.
On the loss side, Monaco had the misfortune of running into Erica Testa, who'd been defeated in the event's opening round by Judie Wilson and was in the midst of a six-match, loss-side winning streak that would propel her into the semifinals versus Shea. She downed Kristina Douglas, O'Hanlon, Shoop and Heather Platter to draw Monaco. Nester didn't fare much better in the 'draw' department, picking up Mocanu, who was also defeated in the event's opening round by Whitman, and was on her own five-match, loss-side streak that began with two straight double hill wins (over Sierra Reams and Carol V. Clark). She went on to defeat Judie Wilson 7-3, Britanya Rapp 7-1, and survived her third, loss-side double hill match (vs. Kia Sidbury) to pick up Nester.
Nester ended Mocanu's streak 7-3, and in the quarterfinals, faced Testa, whose streak continued with a double hill win over Monaco. Testa was gaining momentum. She allowed Nester only a single rack in those quarterfinals, and advanced to meet Shea. Testa put up a fight in those semifinals, but Shea prevailed 7-5 for a second shot at Whitman in the hot seat.
They played an extended race-to-9, in which, if the loss-side opponent reaches "7" first, the race is extended to 9 games. Shea hit that "7" spot first, went on to win 9-7 and claimed the season opening title.
As representative of the JPNEWT, Shea extended thanks to the ownership and staff at Triple Nines for their hospitality. The next stop on the JPNEWT, scheduled for the weekend of April 30-May 1, will be hosted by Markley Billiards in Norristown, PA.
