CABOT — Like most people, this group of eight flew to Las Vegas intending to win.

Only Steve and Susan Bergbigler, Brad and Kelly McCall, Chad Holsing, Mark Bollinger, Mark Wiles and Tanya Curtis weren't looking to succeed at black jack, poker, on the roulette wheel or the slot machines.

Their game was pool.

And they recently left Sin City as national champions of the Rally in the Desert 8-ball tournament.

“I never dreamed we could do this,” said Wiles, co-captain of the Runt's Road House billiards team in Cabot. “I never even thought we'd make it out there.”

But they did, first by winning the Butler City TAP League title, then getting through a Title Holders tourney in Niles, Ohio.

The latter “earned us the right to go to nationals,” team captain Steve Bergbigler said.

Competing in the Gold bracket in Las Vegas, the Cabot team, under the moniker of Purple Pickle Helmets, split its four matches in pool-play competition Jan. 24. That Saturday and Sunday, it won all five of its matches in the tourney's then single-elimination format.

The first team to win three games wins a match. So while their roster was eight, no more than five players could participate in a single match.

The competition took place at the Orleans Hortel, where 50 pool tables were set up in a ballroom.

“The games were pretty intense,” Holsing said. “It got more intense the deeper you advanced, with so much on the line.

“There were probably 1,000 people or so, roaming in and out, watching and observing. The place was real quiet when someone was taking a shot in the finals.”

Ironically, the Purple Pickle Helmets defeated a team from Cleveland in the finals, 3-2.

“I guess the Turnpike rivalry came back again,” Bergbigler said, laughing. “We had a lot of fun teasing those guys. It was a good match. The whole thing was pretty wild.

“There were 52 teams in the tournament, one from Ontario, Maine, Oklahoma, three from Florida ... Teams came in from all over the place.'

Bergbigler added that a similar tournament is being planned in Philadelphia that will have 300 teams.

“Pool is making a big comeback as a sport,” he said. “Our league involves teams from bars in the Butler area traveling around to play each other. It's a lot of fun.”

Holsing said the entire team — which includes two narried couples — met through playing pool.

“All of us, pretty much, have pool tables at home,” he said. “We don't just play at Runt's, we hang out together socially and play the game at each other's houses.

“For at least a couple of years, I've known all of these people. We're more like a family now than a pool league.”

Bergbigler said he met the first one in the group “maybe 15 years ago and it's just grown from there.”

This team certainly isn't resting on its laurels.

It will compete in another national qualifying tournament in Ohio Feb. 16-17. A win there will qualify the Purple Pickle Helmets for nationals Nov. 2-7 in Biloxi, Ms.

“We've been playing pool together for so long that we help each other just by watching,” Wiles said. “We know each other's shots, how to set something up to control the table.

Setting up the table is a big part of this. We plan together. We work together. We're comfortable with each other.”

When his team claimed the championship in Vegas, Wiles said he couldn't believe what just happened.

“It was a fantastic thing ... truly amazing,” he said.