Happy December! We’ve reached the last month of this crazy pandemic recovery year, and the last week of the 2021 Fall session! We hope that everyone is getting back into their flow of life and ready to start a fresh new year with the 2022 Spring session that starts on January 2nd. Visit the SD APA Team Building Page to round out your rosters!

Turkey Shoot Results: We hope everyone had a “full-filling” Thanksgiving, thanks to all of the players that were able to spend some holiday time with us, and a big THANK YOU to Tony and Shandi at the Library for their hospitality! We gave away some APA swag that included hoodies, hats, cups and phone chargers, and we ran two skill level tiered tournaments with Doug Majorsky and Nayan “Snacks” Tamrakar taking home 1st Place cash! To view event pictures and all tournament results, click links here: FB Event Page| Skill Tier 2-4 Bracket | Skill Tier 5-7 Bracket

Local Singles Qualifier Boards: We’ve also reached the end of the qualifying window for players to advance to the Singles Regional. We’d like to thank all of the Tournament Directors and players who spent a great deal of their personal time promoting and running these local singles boards: Berna Bauer, Keith Brown, Priscilla and Reuben Duffy, Kai Fellows, Jesse Gallegos, Berm Imamura, Stephanie Riepl, Sandi Specht… After we process all of the last chance boards, we are expecting about 100 qualified players from San Diego! Once the APA finalizes the number of players from each league area, we will get confirmation about hosting the regional at Pockets, so stay tuned in the upcoming weeks!

Weekly League Play: This is the final week of our 2021 Fall session, and next week is the start of playoffs. Even if your team didn’t finish at the top of division standings, every team still has a chance to make playoffs and be eligible for the wild card draw, as long as all league fees are paid and the team has no more than 5 individual forfeits in the session. Each division has a 2-week playoff, with a structure based on the number of teams in the division.

# of Division Teams --> Playoff Structure for First Round

4 --> 1st Place team has Bye; 2nd Place plays Wild Card

5 --> 1st Place vs. Wild Card ; 2nd Place vs. 3rd Place

6-11 --> 1st Place bypasses playoffs directly to the Blast; 2nd vs. Wild Card; 3rd vs 4th

12-16 --> 1st Place directly to Blast; Playoff #1: 2nd vs. Wild Card #1; 4th vs. 6th | Playoff #2: 3rd vs. Wild Card #2; 5th vs. 7th

The winning teams from the first round of playoffs play again in the final round (week 2). The team with the highest seed hosts each playoff match for each week of playoffs. Playoff champions will go to the Blast. Refer to the San Diego APA bylaws for all details regarding the playoffs. Playoff fees are $40 instead of $50. You will not be able to use the League app/Stripe to pay the reduced rate playoff fees. The league office will send you an invoice for your playoff matches via email to the person that normally pays your league fees. With that invoice, you can pay your playoff fees with a credit or debit card as usual using a link provided in the email. Or, you can Zelle team fees to sandiego@apaleagues.com.

To be eligible for playoffs, you must have 4 matches played with your team during the 2021 Fall session. In addition, to be eligible for the Fall Blast, scheduled for Feb 5-6, 2022, you must have at least 6 lifetime matches by the end of the session (including playoff matches) in the format that you are competing. Teams only need to play and win one round at the Blast to advance to the City Championships/World Qualifiers (This is the league’s year-end tournament that gets you to Vegas for the World Team Championships!). The 8-Ball City Championships take place June 4-5, 2022 and the 9-Ball City Championships take place June 11-12, 2022.

MVPs from 3 skill level tiers in each division will be calculated after the end of the regular Fall session. Results will be published on the MVP pageof our websiteand announced on the APA League app. Patches earned (8-On-Break, 8-Break-and-Run, 9-On-Snap, 9-Break-and-Run, Grand Slam) for the 2021 Fall session can be picked up at the Blast or City Championships. Anyone on the team can pick up patches for the entire team. We will also have MVP trophies, Perfect Session trophies and the two previous session MVP trophies. Please come and pick up your teammates’ MVP trophies. They also receive an MVP patch and $30 in Singles Board vouchers with their trophy.

Register your team for the 2022 Spring Session! In the yellow-highlighted Message Center at the bottom of your scoresheets, please mark whether or not your team is playing next session. The Spring session is the last session of the league year, and with only two qualifying sessions this year(normally it’s 3 sessions with more teams), this will be your best chance to advance to the APA’s World Pool Championships in Vegas!

Renew your 2022 Memberships Now! If you paid your 2021 memberships after August 15th, your membership is only $15 for the New Year! Have a great holiday month and we hope to see you soon! Liza & Scot& Lindsay