Captains Log, October 20th, 2019

We got through the busy tournament season with quite a few success stories, so let me tell you all of the good news. We had a lot of players qualified for the Singles Regional in Riverside County on the first weekend of the month, and San Diego APA members won 9 of the 13 qualifier boards. These players will be advancing to the 2020 APA Poolplayer Championships in Las Vegas to compete for thousands of dollars in prize money. Here is our list of winners:

9 Ball- Cynthia Walker, Michael Hartman (White Tier) skill level 4-5 Darryn Lewis (Gray Tier) skill level 6-7 Paul Langley (Black Tier) skill level 8-9

8 Ball- Angela Elliott (Blue Tier) skill level 2-3 Pam Cabaniss (Yellow Tier) skill level 4 David Salyer (Red Tier) skill level 5 Ces Ralston, Joel Kindem (Orange Tier) skill level 6

To qualify for the event that these players just won, you must compete on local qualifier boards (also known as Singles Boards). MVP winners receive vouchers that allow them to compete in qualifiers at a fraction of the normal cost. See our Facebook group page “SDAPA qualifier events & info ” for when the next qualifier dates. 

The SDAPA had 57 teams compete in the 2019 9 Ball Southwest Challenge tournament at the Westgate Resort in Las Vegas this past weekend. 21 of the 57 three person teams competing cashed in the tournament. SDAPA teams brought home $9960.00 in prize money from this event, which is an outstanding accomplishment. Two of our teams finished in 3rd place, which was our highest finish. Those teams are Kim Nguyen, Nayan “Snacks” Tamrakar and Norma Casillas and Travis Gibson, Stephanie Boulette and Benjamin Morphew. 

There are some pretty amazing stories about both of these 3rd place finishers. Travis’s team is a crazy story. Travis was already one of the last teams to sign up for the Southwest Challenge, and he actually thought he might have been too late. He signed up with 2 players, and a week later those two players backed out. Given about 2 days to find replacements, he found Stephanie Boulette and Benjamin Morphew (neither have played in a SWC before) in Escondido and they called me up and submitted a new roster. They also made it to the semifinals with key wins in every match and contributions from every member of the team. To think you might have to drop out of the tournament altogether and then finish in 3rd place within a week of solidifying your team is pretty amazing. 

And an even crazier and happy story, as many of you know, Nayan is a skill level 9. We don’t really have a lot of 9’s that participate in this event, because it’s really hard to field a team that can’t add up to more than 15. Even tougher is getting to 75 points in every single match playing against players of varying skill levels based on how our format works. Nayan never lost a match, beating 5,4,3,3,4,3,5. When playing against 3’s, he has to get 3 balls for every ball the skill level 3 gets. If the 3 gets a 9 Ball, Nayan needs 6 balls. That’s really tough to do. Kim (skill level 4) and Norma (skill level 2)were great complements to Nayan’s amazing feat. Kim’s only loss came in the semifinal match. Nayan and Kim also won the 2016 9 ball SWC with Ducky Holt. Nayan was an 8 back then, but it was also the tournament in which Nayan would move up to a skill level 9 for the first time. The most amazing part of this story, however, is that Nayan and Kim finished in 3rd place this year playing with heavy hearts. Many of us found out late Friday night or early Saturday morning that SDAPA league member Terri Mitchell had passed away at the young age of 42. Many of our SWC team players were close friends of Terri and there was a lot of sadness and love for our lost friend at this year’s event. I think this gave some of our teams more focus to win one for Terri, but it might have affected the play of others. She was a best friend to a lot of our league members and will be missed by all. Results for all of the teams will be posted to the web site.

The SDAPA sadly announces the passing of Teresa “Terri” Mitchell. She joined the San Diego APA in 2004 playing mostly in East County. Terri was near 500 lifetime APA matches played split pretty evenly between 8 ball and 9 Ball and she was just on a team that went to the APA World Pool Championships in August (Ginger’s Snaps). Terri’s outstanding performance in the SDAPA City Championships pushed her to a skill level 5, and she actually won one of her matches at the World Pool Championships as a skill level 5. She became friends with anyone that knew her, because she was just that nice of a person and a pretty good pool player. She was 42. RIP Terri! You will be missed!

APA has already combined the Singles Regional and Southwest Challenge tournament scores back into the database, so if you see that someone has moved up without playing a league match, that would most likely be why. We just input some Singles Boards, also.

Shoot Pool Good! Brian, Jill and Lindsay Office Hours 9am-7:30pm Daily 619-303-0183 Find us on Facebook as San Diego APA 

sandiegoapa@cox.net  

sdapajill@cox.net  

sdapalindsay@cox.net  

league.poolplayers.com Find the app on your smart phone/tablet at APA Pool Leagues (member services)

sandiego.apaleagues.com (league web site) 

Want to pay team fees using our online store? Go to mysdapa.ecwid.com   

For a list of ALL payment options, select Pay League Fees from the sandiego.apaleagues.com website menu.

Email score sheets to sdapa_office@cox.net