Charlie Blackmer
Features Editor

Photo by Nick Weems

“No calling shots, slop’s fine, but you lose if you scratch on the 8-ball,” Society of Physics Students president Jaimie Stephens announced Friday afternoon to kick off the club’s Billiards Tournament fundraiser in the University Center game room.

“I think there’s a lot in pool that has to do with physics,” physics major and SPS member Carl McIntyre said. “Concentration of energy, elastic collisions, inelastic collisions, angles, force, friction.”

Twelve teams of two—Beer, White Beaner, Team Cat, Peligroso, That’s What’s Up, Packers, Space Jam, Nigeria, Batman, Velociraptor, Dirty Dogs, and the Ruckers—were broken into brackets and took to the tables after paying a $5 registration fee.

Brandishing a small pink pool cue brought from home, eight-year-old Sarai Rea showed up half an hour early for the tournament, accompanied by her dad and teammate Matt Rea, a mechanical engineering major and physics minor.

“We have a [pool] table, and we play a lot at home,” Matt said shortly after the two decided on Team Cat as their team name. “She’s beat me the past few times. We keep track on the wall at home.”

Saria’s strategy? “I take my time,” she said. “I think we’re going to do okay.”

After a flip of the coin, Team Cat’s opponents—physics students Danny Weller and Brandon Gracey of Peligroso—broke the rack, beginning what would soon prove to be an uneven game.

“We’re not very good, not at all,” Weller admitted. “None of that physics advantage at all.”

Sarai turned to her father for guidance on certain shots, but otherwise maintained a concentration befitting someone twice her age. After 20 minutes of play, she revealed a bright, but humble smile when Weller scratched on the 8-ball, automatically earning Team Cat the win.

Unfortunately for the Reas, their victory against Peligroso was the duo’s only win of the tournament, and the two disappeared out the game room door after losing to White Beaner in the second round, where rules were tightened to exclude any shot that wasn’t called.

“[Calling shots] is a very accepted rule. When it comes to the 8-ball, you have to be specific,” Stephens said, referring to the practice of calling out which pocket a player is aiming for on each shot.

The pool tournament was the brainchild of SPS Treasurer Victoria Chavez, a mechanical engineering major who played with biology major Melissa Peterson for Velociraptor. Despite Chavez’s initial hesitation, the team made it to the quarter finals of the tournament.

“I didn’t even think we’d make it past the first round,” Chavez said. “It was mostly just to support the club.”

Traditionally, the Society of Physics Students has focused its fundraising efforts on bake sales, but that market “was getting too competitive, so we had to come up with another idea,” Stephens said.

This time of year, all funds raised by SPS go to its annual April egg drop, in which high school and middle school students build contraptions designed to hold, and protect, a single egg.

“The contraption that falls in the least amount of time with the egg remaining intact” is deemed the winner, according to Stephens, who said the club gives out $75 to the winning students.

Registration fees for Friday’s Billiards Tournament totalled $60, a whopping $50 of which went home with tournament champions Morgann McCoy and Wale Ademuyiwa of team Nigeria after their win against White Beaner in the final round.

“We met here playing pool,” business management major McCoy said of Ademuyiwa, a native of Nigeria who has been in the U.S. for a mere month.

“They had no finesse,” Ademuyiwa said, referring to his defeated opponents.

cblackme@mavs.coloradomesa.edu