DALTON, Ga. — A journey down a road that started nearly a year ago will take a group of local pool players all the way to Las Vegas

Two area teams based out of the Dalton Billiards Club have earned their way to the American Poolplayers Association World Pool Championships beginning next week in Las Vegas. There, the teams will compete with the best from across the world for a $25,000 top prize.

For the first time in the 10-year history of the North Georgia APA a team from Dalton qualified for the world championship — although, one team five years ago advanced as an alternate — and it happened in both 8-Ball and 9-Ball formats.

The Nerve Rackers, captained by Harlan Taylor and co-captained by his wife Blair, won the right to represent the area in 8-Ball, winning the area finals held in Dalton. Captain John Erwin’s Good Old Boys traveled to Ellijay and won the 9-Ball competition for north Georgia. With the wins come the chance to go to Las Vegas and compete for the world championship.

Joining the Taylors on the Nerve Rackers are Robbie Brooks, Rocky Butt and Allen, Chase, Miranda and Wayne James.

The team overcame a host of challenges away from the tables before earning its title.

“We’ve been through so much in the last two-and-a-half years that we’ve played,” Blair Taylor said. “We’ve lost players, my dad got cancer in the middle of one of our sessions. We were the No. 1 team and we fell apart a little bit. We were trying to regroup, we had another player have a heart attack. We’re going through all of this. We totally worked together as a team to make this happen. We did whatever it took to make sure we were there for each other as a family.

“We were going to give it everything we had because we’ve been through enough. We fought every which way to get there. When we got there we decided win or lose, we still love each other. And we weren’t losing. No matter what we did, if we were down, one of our players somehow pulled it out where we did it.”

Shayla Bergeman, Tanner Massingill, Herbert Rhudy, Anthony Smithers and Joshua Smithers join Erwin on the Good Old Boys, although Rhudy has been absent due to health issues.

“It means a lot to us,” Erwin said of the chance to compete in Las Vegas. “We’re going out there with a 5-man team. Odds are stacked against us, but we’re going to play pool. Pool to me is a tricky game. You got to get the roll of the table, you got to have some skill, and you got to have luck. If you don’t have all three of them, it’s hard to win it all. When we went to Ellijay, we had it all.”

The 9-Ball championships begin on Thursday and last until Aug. 14. That same day is when the 8-Ball championships begin.

The pool season began last summer and extended through three 16-week sessions leading up to the local playoffs. The teams that made it through the playoffs advanced to the local team championships that brought together the best teams from across the north Georgia region to determine who would represent the area at the world championships in Las Vegas.

The APA’s north Georgia region stretches from the Tennessee and Alabama borders down through Cartersville and as far east as Forsyth County.

Alex Gooch, league operator for the North Georgia APA, estimated the two Dalton teams that are heading to the world championships bested roughly 50 teams spread out across the region to earn that right.

“It’s good competition,” Gooch said. “They play weekly, play different teams from their specific area each week. It’s set up all by points your team earns over time. Everyone’s really fighting for that top spot.”

But despite the competitiveness, the league is for everyone of all skill levels.

“It’s very competitive but you don’t have to be a pool shark by any means,” Gooch said. “Everybody from every walk of life can play in this. It can be the first day you pick up a cue or you could’ve played for 20 years. You’ll find all different type of people playing.

“From a businessman to a construction worker, anyone and everyone is welcome into it. If you’re wanting a team-building experience or just to hang out with your buddies, this is the league for you.”

The league uses a handicap system that gives the players a ranking based on their ability. Lower-ranked players have to win fewer 8-Ball games or score fewer points in 9-Ball to score a match victory over their opponent. Teams can have a roster of eight with five allowed to play on any given night.

That’s where the team aspect of the game comes into play.

“You got to have a team thing. It’s not an individual sport like golf or some others,” Erwin said. “If you don’t have the team structure, your team won’t succeed. We all got to pull for each other and stand behind each other. A lot of times it’s your lower skill player that carries you.”

That’s the way it worked out during the local championships for Taylor’s Nerve Rackers.

“In pool you always have your heavy hitters, you have your top players that are always your best players,” Taylor said. “For us, we have two top players that are very high ranked and a third that was my dad who was sick and couldn’t play. We knew we had to put the pressure on the lowest ranked players. You have to go in there with the mindset it doesn’t matter. That day, it didn’t matter who stepped up to that table, we were playing the balls, not the players.”

There was a slight difference in the way each team celebrated its accomplishment.

“We played from Saturday morning to Sunday night at 9:30 when we won the title,” Erwin said. “Instead of the hooting and the hollering a lot of people do, I was the last one up, the lady I was playing, instead of hooting and hollering, I went out to shake her hand. We ended up shaking hands and hugging. Next thing I know the whole team, that’s what we done.”

Erwin admitted on the way out, the magnitude of what his team had accomplished started to set in, but he believes the sportsmanship is what the game is all about.

“When we got to the parking lot that’s when it kind of hit us,” he said. “We let out a little thrill after that. But it’s more about sportsmanship than about anything. Even Alex told us, ‘That’s the most sportsmanship I ever seen from somebody that won. Never seen anybody shake hands and hug.’ Two teams don’t usually do that. It was a long battle for all of us. We’re all there for two days solid. Nobody really thought either one of us would be in the finals. It was mutual respect for each other.”

As for the Nerve Rackers, after a trying couple of weeks, it was an emotional and boisterous reaction.

“I think we all went outside and just screamed,” Blair Taylor said. “It was probably one of the most proudest moments we ever could’ve had. We didn’t just overcome everything we’ve been through, all the health issues, we overcame our own self-doubt, our own perfectionism. We pulled it together as a team and we won together. That was the best moment.

“My husband, our team captain, we just lost his dad not three days before that. We were fighting for him. My dad was in Canada and we were fighting for him. We called my dad and we told him we won and we were crying. We all screamed up to the sky and told Melvin, ‘We did this for you.'”

Also out of the Dalton Billiards Club, 13-year-old Gage Autry competed at the National Juniors Championship in Davenport, Iowa, in July.

“Our 9-ball team, our juniors, that’s how we work, we work as a family,” Taylor said. “I think that’s why we have the opportunity in this area to have the chance to do it. We all decided as a family that no matter what we were going to give it everything we had and be there for each other.”

“There’s a lot of camaraderie between the people,” Erwin added. “You want everybody, especially from here, every team that was in it, we pull for each other. You want a team from your home place to win. That’s the main objective. It’s the same in every sport.”

And that has led them to Las Vegas. While some might see a trip to Vegas as a reward in itself, Erwin said it’s basically a business trip.

“We’re not going to gamble or look at the lights or anything else. We’re going to play pool, same thing we did in Ellijay,” he said. “If we win, we win and I hope we do. And I hope (Nerve Rackers) do too.”