Junior Player of the Month
Skylar Hess Like many of her Junior International Championship (JIC) colleagues, 13-year-old Skylar Hess of Queenstown, MD, steps up to competitive pool tables displaying an impressive array of significant skills; a good stroke, an ability to make sound shot-selection decisions, cue-ball and speed control, an awareness of pattern play and an age-appropriate, intense desire to win any game she plays.
R
oy Pastor, a BCA-certified Professional Billiards Instructor, who’s been working with Skylar (and other JIC competitors) in a BCA Break and Run program over the past year or so, notes that there is generally not one thing that separates one junior player from another, since they all work on the basics and advance at (more or less) the same speed. What he has noticed about Skylar, though, is an ability she has developed to focus at the table, to avoid distrac-
24 | Billiards Buzz • April 2022
tions. She’s only been a teenager for about three months and she appears to have mastered the ability to identify and move beyond distractions to which new teenagers otherwise tend to be prone; frustration, borne of the disconnect between expectations and performance, the pressures of any given moment, whether it be about being watched, or being behind 0-6 in a race to 7. She has developed in that regard to an extent that people four times her age can envy.
“She has really good focus at the table and is not easily distracted,” said Pastor. “She has the kind of focus that I’d expect in an older junior player. She works really hard, her parents are really supportive and she’s an allaround great kid.” “She’s doing really well and I think she has unlimited potential,” he added. “She’s 13, always a critical age in teenagers and pool players, but it she sticks with it and does what she needs to do, she’ll be fine.”
