Chaplin takes two out of three over Woods to claim Stacie Hughes Memorial in Roseburg, OR
Memorial events in a pool community tend to be intensely personal. They’re generally organized and held to honor a competitor from a given community and reflect aspects of a career at the tables that doesn’t necessarily highlight specific accomplishments at ‘major,’ newsworthy tournaments at which the memorialized player excelled. They’re generally attended by competitors from […]
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John Chaplin and Leonard Woods
Memorial events in a pool community tend to be intensely personal. They’re generally organized and held to honor a competitor from a given community and reflect aspects of a career at the tables that doesn’t necessarily highlight specific accomplishments at ‘major,’ newsworthy tournaments at which the memorialized player excelled. They’re generally attended by competitors from that community, some larger in actual population size than others.
The George ‘Ginky’ San Souci Memorial in New York City may be the most prominent example, which, by reason of that community’s size and some of the more prominent professional events that have been held there over the years, attracted a lot of ‘name’ players, including, to name just a few, Shane Van Boening, Mike Immonen, Earl Strickland, Dennis Hatch, Mike Dechaine and one of the event’s original organizers, Tony Robles. Other memorialized names in the pool community at large which attract their share of ‘name’ competitors to tournaments bearing their name include Scotty Townsend, Andy Mercer, Don Coates and out on the West Coast, Jay “Swanee” Swanson, whose memorial was originally held in California, but is now being held every year in Las Vegas.
The pool community of Roseburg, OR created a memorial tournament to honor one of its own last month (March 30). Located roughly in the middle of the state, about an hour and half from the Pacific Ocean to its west and about two and half hours south of Portland, Roseburg sits in the Umpqua River valley, on both sides of the river. It is directly off Interstate Route 5, which winds its way down from the Canadian border all the way to Mexico. According to Sheryl Snow, part owner with her brother, Robert (“Bobalou”) Gering, of Bobalou Billiards, Stacie Hughes didn’t actually reside in Roseburg, but along with a fellow pool player, Randall Harris, did drive an hour and a half from Coos Bay, on the Pacific Ocean, to attend all of the room’s tournaments that had been held there since it opened in January of 2024.
“Stacie was an average billiard player,” Snow wrote to us here at AZBilliards, “who made a special effort to improve her game by learning on the 9 ft. tables and driving that hour and a half all the time from Coos Bay. She’d played pool for 30-some years was well-known, well-liked in the community and a loyal patron of Bobalou Billiards.”
Hughes, who passed away suddenly, due to a brain aneuryism in January of this year, was in her 50s and left behind two daughters, Makayla and Melody Hughes, both of whom she raised while encouraging them to play pool.
The $700-added, Stacie Hughes Memorial drew 51 entrants to Bobalou Billiards, none with a higher FargoRate than its winner, John Chaplin (599), who went undefeated to the hot seat, lost the first set of a true, double-elimination final to Leonard Woods and claimed the event’s first title by winning the second set. So, modest number of entrants, no ‘names,’ no thousand-dollar payouts, no live ‘stream’ broadcast to interested spectators all over the country. But intensely personal, especially for one of its competitors, Randall (Randy) Harris, Hughes’ travelling and playing companion with Hughes on those hour and a half drives from Coos Bay.
The game was 8-ball (Hughes’ favorite game) and played out in the ‘unforgiving’ format of Open (not handicapped) races to three, where a mistake or two can find you out of the running before you’ve had enough time to wake your ‘stroke’ up and get it to performing at its best.
John Chaplin didn’t give up a single rack until he got into the hot seat match; 12-0 in games through his first four matches. He’d been the recipient of a forfeit win before shutting out Andy Jellison, Jacob Neiss, Greg Cottle, and in one of the winners’ side semifinals, eventual runner-up Leonard Woods. Tracey McGuire, in the meantime, who was awarded a bye in the opening round, chalked up a shutout over Richard VanBurger, and then had to survive a pair of double-hill matches against Tony Sandoval and Zack Zager, before meeting and defeating Jon Letsom in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Chaplin, literally ‘on a roll,’ kept it up. He shut out his fifth straight opponent, Tracey McGuire, and claimed the hot seat.
On the loss side, where there were only two possible match scores – shutout (2-0) or double hill (2-1) – Letsom and Woods arrived to pick up Jellison and Chuck Basney, respectively. Jellison had followed his opening-round loss to Chaplin with six straight, to include the recent elimination of Victor Hansen (shutout) and Greg Cottle (double hill) to draw Letsom. The Woods/Basney get-together was a rematch. Basney had been defeated by Woods on the winners’ side 3-1 and then won four in a row on the loss side, three shutouts and most recently a double-hill win that eliminated Lee Brohel.
Woods defeated Basney a second time, shutting him out and advancing to the quarterfinals. Letsom eliminated Jellison, double hill, and joined him. Woods took the quarterfinal match, taking the shorter, shutout route.
Woods and McGuire battled to double hill in the semifinals that followed, creating the Chaplin/Woods rematch in a double-elimination final. Woods, likely benefiting from the momentum of his double-hill semifinal, battled Chaplin to double hill and won the opening set. Chaplin bounced back, battling Woods to double hill and finally, defeating him for the second time to claim the 1st Annual Stacie Hughes Memorial title.
“We were able to raise $1,240 at the tournament and donated it to the family,” said Snow. “We’re (looking) to make this an annual event, with a bigger tournament pot in future years.”
