Local teams earn shot in national tournament

Five local pool teams will attempt to bring back another championship at the APA National Championships Aug. 15 through 25 in Las Vegas.

All five teams -- three 8-ball and two 9-ball -- won their brackets at last week's regional competition at A.C. Brase Arena in Cape Girardeau. Competing in August at the Riveria Hotel and Casino will be 9-ball entries The Pack and Huly's Niners and 8-Ball teams Ding-Dong Daddy's and SRA, all of The Billiard Center, and Snipers, an 8-ball team representing Breakaways.

Harold Graviett captained Huly's Hooligans to last year's Camel 8-Ball National Team Championship last year and its accompanying $25,000 prize. Graviett will again be captain of a Las Vegas-bound team, leading Huly's Niners, which also features holdovers Donna Graviett and Gerald Pobst from Huly's Hooligans.

A fourth Hooligan member, Ron Bowers, will make the trek as captain of Snipers.

"Cape is known for being one of the best pool towns around," said Jamie Dodd, The Billiard Center manager and captain of The Pack.

Cape Girardeau teams grabbed five of the six spots in the SEMO Recreation League regional, with the sixth entry grabbed by an 8-ball team from Paragould, Ark. Eighty-one teams competed to be one of the four 8-ball qualifers and about 40 teams vied for the two 9-ball spots. All of the approximately 120 teams had qualified by winning a session in the SEMO Recreation League. League dues will pay for plane and hotel accommodations for the six national qualifiers.

Dodd, who qualified for the third time in four years, has witnessed the demanding pressure-packed national tournament.

"Once you get going you don't have time to play anything but pool," Dodd said.

Teams, which have as many as eight players, must win a series of best-of-five matches. Last year Huly's Hooligans went 10-0 in Las Vegas as it climbed to the top of a field in excess of 500 teams.