Welcome to the start of the Fall Session! Next weekend is Labor Day weekend and Sunday and Monday teams are off next week. The Westgate Resort hosted the APA National Team Championships this year and we are fresh off of our return home. We are happy to report that the Westgate was a fantastic venue for the National Championships and we look forward to many years there going forward. Our APA Southwest Challenge 9 Ball Tournament takes place there October 15-18, and time is running out to sign up for this event.
The Summer Session was still wrapping up as this newsletter was being written, but MVP reports are now posted on the web site. To be eligible for MVP, you must have played in 51% of the weeks your team played a match. Byes do not count as a week played. Playoffs do not count towards MVP. Also, whatever skill level you end the regular session with is the skill level that we use when determining MVP. Even if you did not play a match at that skill level, that will still be the skill level you qualify for the award with. What also needs to be made clear is that it isn’t the skill level you were on the final week of play, but the skill level AFTER the final week of play.
Our APA Junior Academy program is kicking into gear once again. Contact the league office as soon as possible if you have a junior between the ages of 7 and 18 that you would like to put into our academy. The class fees are really inexpensive and they get excellent instruction from highly skilled members of our pool league. 10 classes total, 2 or 3 Saturdays a month from September to December. See web site for details.
This last month has been a rough one for many of us in the San Diego APA. We sadly announce the passing of longtime league members Tom McPhail, Deborah Gronvold and Larry Foster. We will provide write ups next week for these adored league members, and there are already announcements on all 3 members on our San Diego APA Facebook page. Our sincerest condolences to all of the friends, family and teammates of all 3 of these well liked league members. They will be missed!
We have not given up on setting up an online payment option for our league members, but it has been a slow process. We hope to get something introduced in the coming weeks. We apologize for the delays and we are still working on it.
The Blast is scheduled for October 10-11 at the Locker Room. We will get schedules posted soon. The Blast is when we award all end of session trophies and patches. We award Division Champion trophies, playoff champion plaques, MVP trophies, Perfect Session trophies, patches for 8 Ball Break and Break and Run, 9 Ball Snap and Break and Run and Grand Slam patches for those that achieve Breaks and Break and Runs in both 8 Ball and 9 Ball in a session. Prize money checks are still a few weeks away. If you want the check to go out to someone other than the team captain, the CAPTAIN needs to contact us and let us know. Anyone that owes money to the league will have any winnings (within their portion of prize money) deducted from your prize money check. Past due players have money symbols next to their name on your score sheet. $1000.00 prize money checks go out to Division Champions and Playoff Champions in the Open 8 and 9 Ball Divisions.
We’d like to welcome the new teams that have joined our league this session. Established teams are asked to help out the new teams with rules and procedures to help make their first experience a pleasant one. There is a lot to know and learn and it’s always helpful for these new teams if you show them the ropes. We thank you for your assistance. Schedule changes are quite common in the first few weeks as we add/drop teams that want to join or can no longer field a full roster. Double check the schedule for any changes. Your score sheet should be right unless we contact you. If we do contact you, new ones can still be printed online before your matches, unless it’s a last minute drop. Bye teams should try to be ready to play in case of a last minute schedule change. You may end up having to do a makeup if you aren’t ready, and those can be hard to work out. If you are adding established players, make sure you contact the league office for skill level verification. If you are adding new players, make sure you start them at a higher level if they are better than the suggested starting skill level. Have a great week and good luck with the Fall Session!