A pool team with ties to Platte County won a national championship.
Team K-9, a team from the Side Pockets North, took part in the American Poolplayer Association World Pool Championship 8-ball tournament in Las Vegas and came home with the trophy and a check for $25,000.
Kara Allen only took up the sport of pool three years ago and did so at the urging on her boyfriend, Josh Nienhueser. When the two were playing pool together at Side Pockets in Kansas City North, the 2008 Park Hill South graduate noted it wasn’t much of a choice.
“It was hey, you’re going to come up and play pool with us,” Nienheueser said with a chuckle between shots.
Allen, a 2009 Platte County graduate, got used to playing at pool halls usually three times a week. She steadily gotten better but playing in tournaments was another thing.
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Platte County graduate Kara Allen helped her pool team win a national championship.
“It can get really frustrating because you miss things or things don’t go as planned,” Allen said. “It takes a lot of time to learn and figure it out. There’s a lot of difference factors on the table that can change your entire game. It it just learning, remembering and paying attention to certain things.”
Nienheueser took up the sport while in the Army and developed a passion for the sport that he brought back after his time in the service was over.
The team had eight people and seven of them went to Vegas.
The roster featured: Nick Kluge, Chris Kluge — a Riverside resident — Allen, Nienheueser, Greg Gillot, Jamie Hardin, Saige Homes and Austin Gotch. Holmes didn’t make the trip to Vegas.
Allen, Nienheueser — a Parkville native — and Chris Kluge were the original members of the team that started three years ago. The team won an APA city championship in the spring.
The team competed against squads from all over the United States, as well as Canada and Japan. All told 700 teams were part of the field that ultimately merged into one bracket.
The Kansas City team lost the first night in Vegas and had to keep winning to stay alive. All told, they would play 12 matches.
“About the third day, I thought we might have a chance to fight our way through this and go all the way,” Allen said.
In the finals, the Kansas City squad beat a team called No Excuses from Hickory, North Carolina. In a unique twist, the North Carolina team beat Vegas Shots from Blue Springs, Mo., in the semifinals. K-9 beat The Steel That Glistens from San Diego in the semifinals.
Pool scoring is based on a skill-level ranking but the final scores to win are either 3-0, 2-0 or 2-1. In the tournament format, there are only five matches so at least two people didn’t play in each round
The KC team won the finals 8-4 and got the largest winnings, while the North Carolina team took home $15,000 as the runners-up.
Allen was the final one shooting for the KC team and tried to keep her cool despite the inexperience in the type of competitive environment.
A miscue on the North Carolina team, calling an 8-ball and hitting it in the wrong pocket, gave the hometown team the victory and national championship
“It was kind of a disappointing way to win,” Allen said. “I’m one of those that I would have wanted to play to the entire match out even if we didn’t win. It still amazes me looking back at first picking up a stick and not even knowing how to hold the stick to know what I’m doing. Each person on the team contributed because we all do things different on the pool table.”