CSULB
students shoot to win pool championship
Luis Pena/On-line Forty-Niner
By
Daniel Frias
On-line Forty-Niner
Cal
State Long Beach held its annual billiard
tournament Friday in the University Student
Union. Thirty students, 26 males and four
females, competed for the chance to be the
champion and represent CSULB at the regional
tournament.
This
competition is part of a nation wide college
pool tournament and is put on by the Recreation
Sport Supervision group at school along
with the USU to see who will qualify to
get a chance compete at the regional level
said Heather Schechner, recreation major
and member of the group.
CSULB
hosted the regional tournament two years
ago and this year's regional will take place
next February in Davis. The West region
consists of all the school in California,
Nevada, Hawaii, and Washington Erik Murakami,
USU service coordinator said. There are
a total of 15 regions involved and the winner
from each region gets to go to nationals
to compete for the national college billiard
championship said Murakami.
The
9-ball tournament lasted more than six hours
and after seven rounds of play CSULB business
finance major Long Le was crowned this year's
CSULB pool champion. Le will get a chance
to play at regionals along with the three
runners up.
"It
feels good, said an exhausted Le. "The
whole point of the tournament is to have
fun and meet different players. But it feels
good to win."
The
qualifier was open to CSULB students only
and they played in a double elimination
tournament where two loses gets you out
of the competition. The competition brought
out some of the schools best players which
made it difficult for some players to advance.
"I
wasn't as lucky as I was last year,"
said sophomore Nick Chapman. "This
year was a lot tougher. I'm a little disappointed
I didn't play as well as I felt I could,
but the competition was really tough."
In
order to advance to the next round participants
had to beat their opponents by being the
first to win 4 games. The 9-ball game is
different than the usual pool game with
15 balls. In order to win in nine-ball you
have to put the balls in the pockets in
order from one to nine. This makes it more
difficult one contestant said.
"It's
definitely harder," said senior criminal
justice major Sergio Cuevas. "The fewer
balls you have on the table the harder the
game is."
CSULB
will get to send six people total to regional.
The four male winners will be accompanied
by the female winner and her runner-up.
Yen
Huyhn repeated as champion again this year
easily defending her title against only
four competitors.
"Not
a lot of girls showed up, but it was still
good competition," said Huyhn, who
finished in second place at regionals in
Fresno last year losing to the eventual
female national champion.
"It's
really nerve wracking," said Huyhn.
"You have to focus really hard in order
to do well. You need a lot of practice"
Cuevas
will also be making his second trip to regionals.
Cuevas finished in second place two years
ago in the CSULB tournament, but didn't
fair so well at the regionals.
"Those
guys are really good," Cuevas said.
"They just run. They don't let you
shoot."
"The
whole of the tournament is to have fun and
meet different players. But it feels good
to win."
-Long Le this year's CSULB pool champion
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