Hey! I’m Sofia Mast, also known as The Pink Dagger, and I’m a 16-year-old pool player. I picked up a cue for the first time when I was 10 and a half years old while watching my dad play in his pool league. I had no idea what billiards even was. I just started hitting balls around between his matches. One night, something amazing happened. Jeanette Lee (yes, the “Black Widow”) saw me hitting balls and invited me to join her junior league. That moment changed everything. I joined, and from there, I fell completely in love with the game.
I started competing in junior leagues and quickly began winning matches. The year I joined my first junior league, I ended up taking first place. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I had a natural feel for the game, especially when it came to seeing shots and understanding patterns. As I got more serious, in 2021, I joined the Junior International Championships (JIC), run by Ra Hanna, and that’s where my game really started to take off. As I kept playing, my parents noticed how focused and fearless I was at the table, even at such a young age. They wanted to give me a nickname that matched my energy and since I’ve always loved the color pink, The Pink Dagger was born. It’s sharp, bold, and totally me. Since then, I’ve been playing in tournaments across the country and taken on all kinds of competition from junior players to seasoned pros. Every event is a new chance to grow and learn.