Jim Mueller Wins Star Spangled Sprint, Extends Podium Streak to 9
The event was called the Star Spangled Sprint to the Target, and on the night before the Fourth of July, Jim Mueller took the name literally. In a target-match-play field of 36 at Houston’s LOWer Level Arcade, the first player to bank the organizer’s points total gets pulled and locked into the standings — and Mueller got there a full round ahead of anyone else, finishing his night after 9 games while the rest of the room still had a tenth to play.
For a 12-year veteran ranked #554 nationally, it read less like a breakthrough than a continuation. The win was Mueller’s nineth straight top-3 finish, a run that began in March and has held all the way through spring into summer. In a draw where the average national rank sat near #6,400 and only 2 players cracked the top 1,000, he was the class of the field — and he spent about five and a half hours proving it.
Doctor Who and Jurassic Park Set the Pace
Mueller opened the way front-runners like to: with a pair of wins and no wasted motion. He took the first round on Doctor Who, edging Ty Katsarelis and Jared Liotta in a three-player group, then backed it up on Jurassic Park, where a long second-round grind ended with him ahead of Bill Nebeker and Ramon Martínez. Two rounds, two maximum hauls, and an early cushion.
It fit the shape of his recent form. Mueller has finished top-3 in each of his last 5 events and won 2 of them, and his average finish over the past year has hovered around third — the profile of a player who arrives expecting to be in the mix rather than hoping for it.
Fish Tales and Star Trek Push Back
The middle rounds were where the field reminded everyone the target wouldn’t come free. On Fish Tales in the third round, Mueller settled for third behind Joshua Mitchell and Bill Nebeker; a round later, Star Trek: The Next Generation went the same way, Jack Schiffer taking the group and Mitchell landing second, leaving Mueller third again. Two rounds, two lonely points, and a cushion that suddenly looked thin.
The names doing the pushing were the ones who’d end up on the podium. Across the 6 games he shared with Mitchell on the night, the two split their meetings dead even; against Schiffer, Mueller came out ahead in 3 of 5. He steadied himself in the fifth and sixth rounds, winning outright on Foo Fighters and then on Diner to point himself back toward the target.
A Cold Rack on Pool Sharks
Every winning night has a low point, and Mueller’s arrived in the seventh round on Pool Sharks, where he finished last in a four-player group for the only zero on his scorecard. It’s a fitting table to get humbled on. Bally built Pool Sharks in 1990 as a straight billiards machine — Doug Watson’s art laid over Tony Kraemer’s design, with a young Brian Eddy handling software years before he’d make his name on Attack From Mars and Medieval Madness — and only about 2,250 of them ever left the factory, each with a switchable 8-ball or 9-ball layout.
The same machine had already produced the night’s biggest surprise two rounds earlier. In the fifth round, Tommi Ross — a first-year competitor ranked outside the top 17,000 — won her Pool Sharks group ahead of Ryan Bell, the more established player the ratings favored heavily in that three-way game, with Cindi Brennan taking third. Ross would finish 33rd overall, but for one rack on a 36-year-old table, the seeding didn’t mean a thing.
First to the Target
Mueller shook off the Pool Sharks zero the way a top seed should, closing with wins on AC/DC and then Cactus Canyon in the ninth round to shove his total to the front of the pack. He’d posted the best score on 6 of the 9 machines he played, and that was enough: target reached, he was pulled from the final round and left to watch the rest of the podium sort itself out.
That sorting ran to the last game. With Mueller done, the fight for second and third came down to the tenth round, and three of the four contenders drew the same World Cup Soccer — Bally’s 1994 soccer machine, a John Popadiuk and Larry DeMar design dressed in Kevin O’Connor art, best known for the fat hemispherical ball up top that spins either direction to knock a good shot off its line. Katsarelis won the group, Schiffer took second and Mitchell third, and that result set the standings behind the champion: Katsarelis to second on 25 points, with Mitchell and Schiffer level at 24 for a shared third.
Each pairing carried some history. Katsarelis nudged a tight, 27-tournament rivalry with Schiffer a step further his way, and got the better of Mitchell too — a flip of a longer series the two have played across 39 meetings, where Mitchell usually finishes higher. Schiffer and Mitchell, for their part, ended a 25-tournament rivalry exactly even, tied for third, even though Schiffer had finished ahead in 5 of the 7 games they shared on the night.
For Mueller, though, the through-line was the streak. Nine events since March, nine top-3 finishes, and now another trophy alongside the 2 wins he’s banked across his last 5 outings. On a night named for a sprint, the veteran just happened to reach the line first.
Final podium — Star Spangled Sprint to the Target
- 1st: Jim Mueller (#554)
- 2nd: Ty Katsarelis (#1109)
- 3rd (tie): Joshua Mitchell (#810) and Jack Schiffer (#1125)
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