Normally during the first year of a new sport you lose more than you win. However, senior Devin Truesdell is the exception. In his first year of playing 8 ball pool, he went to nationals with senior Makayla Baas. Truedell went across the country and defeated over half of his competition. 

Leading up to nationals, Truesdell practiced five days a week for two hours after school at The Rock and enjoys practicing alone to prepare for a competition.

To qualify for nationals you have to have eight weeks of sanctioning which Truesdell did by playing in a league on Saturdays. Pool holds about 10 tournaments a season. 

Talking about the pool schedule, Devin said, “There is about one every month or so. At the beginning there isn’t as many… There is the league every Saturday.”

Truesdell went to South Souix City, Nebraska for nationals. The tournament was held for four days but he stayed for five days. When he gets into a competition he can see how many people he goes against by looking at the bracket. Truesdell ended up placing 33rd out of 128 people in singles. 13th-16th place in teams and 5th-8th in scotch doubles in which he played with senior Makayla Baas. 

Baas was proud of her and Truesdell’s performance said, “Me and Devin did good in doubles this year. We got further than I expected and we went up against tough players.”

Truesdell’s proudest moment was “placing pretty close to receiving an award in doubles”.  

Truesdell would love to help people start playing pool and wouldn’t want anyone to be afraid to start. Maybe they can end up at nationals their first year too.