For some teams, the road to athletic achievement comes from years of practices and workouts. But for one Athens dart team, success came from the simple desire to have fun and drink with friends.

“We got on this stint that we wanted to play a lot of games that we could drink while playing,” said Justin Jasiulevicius, captain of the dart team Solo Shoots First.

“We started playing bocce ball, we were playing beach volleyball, we did bowling . and then we all started playing [darts] every night during the summer, drinking, having fun, and then the guys were like, ‘Well, we have a dart league, y’all should join, you could actually do pretty well.’”

The friends formed a team with the Athens Dart Association last spring and called themselves Ze Vipers, a reference to the hit show, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” For this year’s fall season, the team is known as Solo Shoots First, a “Star Wars” reference. Other teams in the league include Who Darted? and Dart Throwing Scooter Trash.

Solo Shoots First has eight members. Jasiulevicius serves as the captain, with David Gordon as his co-captain. Sameer Vashisht, Rob Packer, Dustin Collier, Kelly Jenkins, Preston Morris and Zach Miller make up the rest of the team.

The team started out in “D” Division last spring, but earned second place and moved up to “C” Division this season. So far, the team is in first place in its division this season.

There are 14 matches per season, and every team must have a home bar, where their matches are usually played. For Solo Shoots First, it is Broad Street Bar and Grill.

“I pretty much went to the owner and was like, ‘Look, we’re going to have 14 matches, at least some of them are going to be here, it’s going to guarantee you business,’” Jasiulevicius said. “And he gives us a bar to play in, pays all of our dues and pretty much reaps the benefits.”

The team plays four games at their matches. Cricket is the most commonly played game, and can be played in singles or doubles.

“In cricket, you have to hit three of every number, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20,” said Vashisht, a junior from Athens. “You have to hit three of all of those, and you have to hit three bull’s-eyes, for your opponent to lose.”

The team also plays 501, a singles game, and 601, which is similar to a three-on-three version of 501.

“You start with 501 points, and then you try to get to zero,” Vashisht said of 501. “But in order to win, you have to do something called double out.”

Doubling out requires the player to hit the small double section for any given number on the dartboard, rather than just hitting the same number twice. 601 follows the same rules, but each team starts with 601 points instead of 501.

The team tries to practice together about once a week.

“It’s not formal,” Vashisht said. “We’ll hang out with the intention of throwing darts, but it’s not ‘alright, we practice every Tuesday and Thursday at 7.’ It’s just, ‘Hey, do you guys want to throw, practice a little bit?’”

Jasiulevicius encourages aspiring dart players to form a team of their own.

“I love seeing more teams at it each year,” he said. “You don’t have to be that good. There’s a team who played last year that was god-awful, and they ended up having a winning season.”