Joseph F. Giammarino
First we would like to thank Green Valley Recreation’s Billiard Club and Art Janssen for their hospitality, friendly competition and a nice luncheon at the 19th Hole after the 8-Ball Challenge. Another big thank you goes out to Dominic Borland, vice president of the Pool Players of the Brooke for organizing this event and making sure it was a success, and he did just that. On Saturday, December 10, 2016, the Pool Players of the Brooke traveled down to Green Valley for an 8-Ball Challenge. Green Valley has three billiard rooms with a total of 10 beautiful nine-foot pool tables and one 10-foot snooker table. We were competing on four nine-foot Gandi pool tables for temporary ownership of a traveling plaque purchased by the Pool Players of the Brooke team members. The format was simple and interesting. We drew numbers to form four partner teams from SaddleBrooke, and Green Valley also had four two-man teams. Our teams consisted of Jim “Rocket Man” Donat and Ron “Dblo7” Ridge, Karl “English” Knight and Richard “Loose Rack” Galant, Dominic “The Doctor” Borland and John “Hole in One” McKinney, and last but not least Joe “Fast Eddie” Giammarino and Gary “Bushwhacker” Powers. Each of our teams would play each of their teams three games of 8-ball with each game won being one point for the winning team. There was a total of 48 points in the match. All our teams played well but not good enough to overcome the very mature game of 8-Ball being played in Green Valley. We were humbled by the GVR Billiard team. We came home empty handed as GVR bested our team and kept the traveling plaque in Green Valley. The final results were Green Valley 31 and Pool Players of the Brooke 17. All four of our teams played well and fought hard down to the last game. PPB’s team of Karl “English” Knight and Richard “Loose Rack” Galant had the best record out of the PPB’s Teams. Congratulations to Green Valley Recreation on its convincing win over the Pool Players of the Brooke. This could be the start of a friendly rivalry. SaddleBrooke is proud of its teams, and they thank GVR for hosting this event. Enjoy your win and also enjoy seeing the traveling plaque on your wall.