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RIGHT on CUE
Pool players shoot for an August trip to Vegas
By JEANNE STARMACK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
GIRARD — Anyone can do it — play pool, that is.
You don’t have to be an expert. You don’t have to be a guy — lots of women play, pointed out Bernie Pavlock, an operator of the American Poolplayers Association, Northeast Ohio Regions League.
Between 500 and 600 of the 2,600 players in the league, which Pavlock runs with his wife, Nouhad, are women, he said.
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BREAK TIME: Ethan George, 19, of East Liverpool watches to see if he sinks anything on the break shot.
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Michelle Beard of Boardman competes in the American Poolplayers Association Second Chance Tournament at Avon Oaks Ballroom in Girard on the team Dark Knights.
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HIS SHOT: Richie Ross of Youngstown competes in the American Poolplayers Association Second Chance Tournament at Avon Oaks Ballroom in Girard.
Many league members, men and women alike, gathered at the Avon Oaks Ballroom for the league’s Second Chance Tournament this weekend.
They were keeping their eye on the ball and their eye on the big prize — a chance to go to Las Vegas in August to compete at the APA National Team Championships.
There, 8,000 players comprising teams with eight people on each will compete for $25,000.
There’s smaller prize money to be had along the way, too, at the league’s “step-down” tournaments — four a year, in September, January and May, lead up to a larger tournament in June, with teams being eliminated along the way. Out of the June tournament, 12 teams will go to Vegas, Pavlock said.
One team that was cued up Sunday at the ballroom, Just Bring it On, features a group from the Ellwood City, Pa., area. The team was waiting Sunday afternoon to play a second match, having already won one in the morning. The team qualified in September to be in the June tournament, said team leader Lisa DiBattista. If it qualified again, she explained, it would be in a better position to win in June.
“Say you have to win three times [in June],” said Pavlock. “Because they qualified twice, they would only have to win twice in June.”
The competition can be fierce. Just Bring it On features a player who’s been at it since 1955 — Richard Tribuzio said it was his friend DiBattista who got him involved in the league this summer.
“He made a living playing it,” DiBattista said of Tribuzio, who was too modest to mention that.
“I used to hustle around,” he then admitted.
He is also a former tournament winner, having won one in the 1960s in western Pennsylvania.
DiBattista is formidable in her own right — she is the first woman in Northeast Ohio to get 25 nine balls on a break — and she was honored with a jacket that shows she’s a member of the XXV Society Club.
But people who are interested in learning pool and would like to join the league shouldn’t be scared off by that kind of competition. Michelle Hawn of Boardman joined five months ago after having never played pool before. There is a handicap system, she said, so novices can play against experts and win.
Hawn and her husband, George, play pool every Thursday now, she said. They’re on Pavlock’s team — the Third-Degree Berns.
“I’m not doing too bad,” she said. “My teammates are a lot of help.”
“It’s fun,” she continued, “and people are so nice. You won’t meet a better bunch.”
Her big Christmas gift this year? A custom-made pool cue, complete with a fancy case.
The Third-Degree Berns were eliminated this weekend, but that’s OK, Michelle said. “We’ll play again.”
Pavlock began the league in 1982 with 30 members. He met his wife when she joined the league in the late 1980s.
The league used to play in West Virginia at Mountaineer Park, he said, but after it got so large, it looked for a suitable venue close to home.
He and Nouhad ended up buying the ballroom, which is still used for ballroom-dancing lessons.
The couple are now remodeling it, he said.