McMaster racks up State spot

Bunbury’s Jacinta McMaster has earned her place on the State women’s eight-ball pool team.

To qualify for the team, McMaster played hundreds of games in Perth against the State’s best pool sharks.

She was the runner-up in the State Open singles competition to book her trip to the Australian Championships on the Gold Coast next month.

It won’t be McMaster’s first time at the championships — she represented Victoria in 2001 but took a break from the game because of family commitment before resuming 18 months ago.

She said not much had changed on the national stage in her time away from the table.

‘ ‘The thing about eight -ball throughout Australia is most of the players now were the same people playing 10 or 15 years ago,’’ McMaster said.

‘‘Occasionally, you get young ones coming up through the ranks but a lot of the time it is people who have been playing for years.

‘‘I already know a lot of them.’’

McMaster is captain of the Commercial Club Canons mixed eight-ball league team and practices regularly at the venue.

She paid tribute to friend and mentor Chris Kolevski — a former State and Australian champion and Commercial Club committee member — who died earlier this year.

McMaster is the first Commercial woman to qualify since Sue Brooks in 1996 and is the only regional player on the team.