ACTEBA Newsletter 2016 Eight Ball Nationals - ACT Teams Wrap margin back to 8-8 prior to the start of the final round before taking the match 15-9. Half way through the round robin group stages, the ACT Opens Team held a record of 2 wins and 5 losses. The team looked to lift its performance as it faced South Australia for the second time. Both teams fought to a standstill with the score at 8-8 after two rounds. South Australia then won the first 3 frames of the final round to edge ahead of the team before eventually winning the match 13-11. Ian Stanley was outstanding against South Australia, finishing the match with 3 wins from 3. The team took an early 7-3 lead against Tasmania and were looking like favourites to win the match. However, Tasmania rallied back in front of a vocal home crowd to win ACT Opens Team 13-11. After two close losses, the team were never in the match as New South Wales took a commanding The ACT Opens team began its 2016 Nationals 6-2 first round lead before running away with the campaign against a very strong South Australian match to win 16-8. Jakk Phillips chalked up another outfit going down 15-9. Despite the loss, Jakk 3 from 3 but his efforts were not enough to lift the Phillips was outstanding in his first ever game at the team. The team were a chance to upset Western Nationals finishing the match going a perfect 3 wins Australia with the match even at 8-8 going into the from 3. He continued to star in the second match final round. The big match experience of the and along with Matt Harmon chalked up another 3 Western Australian players showed as they won wins from 3 effort to provide the backbone of a 14-10. Queensland took an early 6-2 lead against crushing 15-9 victory over hosts Tasmania. With the team before running out winners 14-10. Jakk confidence and self-belief restored, the team took on Phillips and Matt Harmon went 3 wins from 3 to rivals New South Wales in the following match. Matt inspire the team to a 14-10 victory over Northern Harmon went 3 from 3 in another solid outing but the Territory. The team were never in the match against team went down 15-9. The team started out on fire Victoria who reached a winning score of 13-3 with against Western Australia taking a commanding 6-2 one round remaining. The boys fought back in the lead after the first round before being pegged back to final round to make the final score more respectable 9-7 prior to the final round. Western Australia then at 17-7. won 7 out of the last 8 frames to take the match 14-10. It was a missed opportunity for the boys. The The ACT Opens Team finished its 2016 Nationals team also began strongly against Queensland, campaign in 7th place with a 3 win and 11 loss leading 5-3 at the first break before being overtaken record. Jakk Phillips was the top player for the team by Queensland in the next two rounds to lose the with 27 wins from 42 frames for a 64.28% winning match 14-10. Jason Tanaskovic and Shane Smith record. It is a remarkable achievement considering it both went 3 wins from 3 as the team thrashed bottom is Jakk’s first ever appearance at the Nationals, and placed Northern Territory 16-8. In what seemed to hopefully no the last. be a growing trend, the team started out on fire against eventual champions Victoria taking a 6-2 lead after the first round. Victoria then pulled the Page 2 ACTEBA Newsletter A huge match for our ladies against Queensland, we managed to rattle one of the top teams so far this tournament. A fight till the end to secure the draw. Feeling pretty pumped we charged into the next match again Northern Territory, but we knew we needed to stay grounded. You can't underestimate the NT girls and we knew they could steal frames from us. Even though we were ahead the whole match we knew we couldn't relax until that last ball was down. We secured a convincing 12-6 win and Lissi (Melissa Chapelli) walked away with a massive 3/3 against some tough players, earning her a new nickname "The Giant Killer"! Day 4 was the start of the singles tournament. The ladies had their singles matches first up in the day, with Cindy, Ann, Kathy and Kylie progressing through to the second round. With almost half of the tournament completed in 3 ACT Ladies Team and half days, we were ready to take the afternoon off to do (By Ann Moimoi) some fun stuff in the sweet Tassie rain - like catch up on washing... yay! Well, Thursday 6 October seemed to come around Onto our next match - The Vics. Always a tough match much quicker than most of us had initially thought and against these girls and we kicked off to a good start. They was a very full on day for all involved. We all arrived at were fired up and they brought it back to 6 all going into the the Country Club on a high, possibly more hyperactive third. At that point we just couldn't catch them, and they from adrenaline where we discussed some of the secured the win at 11-7. formalities that arose during the delegates meeting and umpires and rules meeting. We lined up patiently Playing SA for the second time, they thought they were waiting for our photos and mingling with friends from going to get away with another head start, but this time the other states before we went on to the opening tables had turned. Our ladies ran away with a huge 5-1 lead ceremony, where of course we all got to have a giggle leaving SA to play catch ups the whole match. We finished at the mispronunciation of people's names and then it with a win of 10-8 and some extra confidence to carry us to was down to business! the next match against Tassie. ACT Ladies begun the tournament with an interesting Unfortunately, the tournament and the hectic schedule was match against South Australian. SA ran away with a beginning to take its toll. It was 9pm and we'd been playing 10-2 lead and thought they had us rattled. But we and talking pool for 12 straight hours. We were trying to proved we were there to fight and brought it back to keep our energy up to fight against Tasmania, but we were 11-7. However, we still played well although it really exhausted. After a gruelling 3 hours, we went to bed after was the nerves that controlled the outcome. midnight with a draw, and some of us were lucky enough to still have voices. We walked away on Thursday night, tired and slightly disappointed with the result however, were determined Back up at 9am the next day to play NSW. We were tired. to get some much deserved rest in order to rejuvenate So tired. We were neck and neck the whole way at 7 all, but and come back and show Tasmania what we are they managed to steal the last few frames finishing on 11-7. made of! And that's exactly what we did, turning our All we wanted to do was sleep. We had a couple of hours to previous night's loss into an 11-7 win over the hosting have a quick nap and then we were back in that pool hall to state team, Tasmania. You can view this match on the play singles, where Kylie progressed to the top 16. AEBF youtube channel - https:// Day 7 we had back to back matches straight up against WA youtu.be/7jr5wbeN6AQ and then QLD. We pulled off a very convincing win against WA and we were feeling like we had found a groove that Something about ACT vs NSW, it's always "smash or was working for us. Up against QLD we were nipping at be smashed" with us. Unfortunately this time we were their heels the whole way, but their two strongest players the smashees, and came away with a loss of 13-5. We were too strong for us this time, and they pipped us at the were feeling a bit deflated, but picked ourselves up post at 10-8. It was then on to cheer Kylie as she dominated quickly, because we knew these matches were not her singles match to progress to the top 8! going to win themselves! We geared ourselves up for a competitive battle against Western Australia next. Day 8. Our final day. We needed to win our last two We dug deep for each win and so did they. They put matches to secure a place in the finals. Perhaps we had put us in difficult positions and we gave it right back to too much pressure on ourselves, but unfortunately we lost against NT 11-7. This meant that we could no longer make them, and walked away with a hard fought draw. the top 4, so we decided to go into our last match against the Vics and just have fun. And we almost got 'em! We Day 3 came around so quickly and we were already were up 7-5 going into the last round, but they pulled out all feeling the exhaustion of playing so much pool with a their tricks to secure their 10-8 win.