Robbie Orsino backed away from the Corvette pinball machine buzzing with adrenaline, eager to see if his multi-ball runs and flipper skills racked up enough points to topple his opponent.

“It’s very much a momentum game,” said Orsino, nearly out of breath between turns during Saturday’s International Flipper Pinball Association state championship at Kickback Pinball Cafe in Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville neighborhood. “Once you get going, you’re a snowball. You don’t stop.”

His sister, Meghan Orsino, watched nervously as she live-texted updates to their dad, mom and grandmother on the other side of the state. They cheered on her 27-year-old brother, who’s loved playing pinball since the fourth grade and used to clean the machines at Pinball Parlor near his home in Lansdale, a suburb north of Philadelphia.

He started playing competitively during college.

“Seven years later, I’m now here at the state finals, I’m playing against some of the best players out there — it’s unbelievable,” Robbie Orsino said shortly after taking down a Pittsburgh player seeded above him in the first round. “This is my first time here, and I feel like the real underdog, but I’m hoping to make it.”

Twenty-four of Pennsylvania’s top pinball players competed in the seventh annual state championship series, with similar tournaments held across the United States and Canada this weekend.

Pinball fever on the rise

Tournament director Doug Polka, 42, a Giant Eagle IT professional from Vandergrift, said it’s an exciting time for pinball.

“Pinball’s been on the resurgence for probably the last decade or so,” said Polka, co-owner of Kickback Cafe, a two-story, BYOB venue on Butler Street with more than 20 pinball machines.

Pittsburgh Pinball League has grown from just seven players using four machines at the former Beehive cafe in the South Side about 15 years ago to more than 160 players with competitions three days a week. Machines increasingly are popping up in bars and restaurants across the region.

“We really like to see the young people coming in, too, because that’s how it’s going to continue to grow,” Polka said.

Beaver County teen retains championship title

At Saturday’s bracket tournament — which was invitation-only based on global rankings — two players faced off against each other each round, with the first to reach four machine wins advancing to the next. Players alternated choosing their preferred pinball machine, which ranged from newer games such as Deadpool and Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory to 1980s classics like the Viking and Cheetah.

Robbie Orsino lost in the second round to Jon Replogle, a Franklin Park resident and former state champion who’s been playing pinball competitively since 1996. He placed second last year.

Replogle was knocked out in the quarterfinals by Lewis Bevans, an engineer at Vitro Glass Technology Center in Pittsburgh’s North Side.

They all fell short of the youngest player of the tournament, Alexander Kaczmarczyk.

The 17-year-old cyber school student from Chippewa, Beaver County clinched the state championship title for the second straight year.

Other players watched in awe and admiration as he scored a personal best of more than 1.6 billion points on his favorite pinball game, Iron Maiden.

“It’s a lot of pressure off my shoulders,” Kaczmarczyk said minutes after his victory. “I always start out the same: I’ll start out kind of a little bit nervous and once you keep playing during the day the nerves go away.”

Second-place finisher Bevans, 27, lauded Kaczmarczyk for “playing fantastic.”

“The kids are taking over pinball now,” Bevans said. “There’s a lot of teenagers working their way up the ranks and getting into major tournaments.”

More than 80,000 ranked players worldwide participate in more than 7,500 events and IFPA leagues, with more than $2 million in cash and prizes doled out in the past year.

“And these numbers keep increasing at a dramatic rate,” the association said in a statement.

Coming in July: 1,000 machines

Pittsburgh plays host to one of the largest tournaments in the country each summer.

More than 1,000 pinball machines will fill the David L. Lawrence Convention Center for the annual ReplayFX tournament in July — which tends to runs of out registration spaces almost immediately, Polka said. He said that pinball is getting more popular in part because people are yearning for hands-on gaming experiences in a time dominated by video games and mobile apps.

“Everything is so digital nowadays, and pinball is really a tactile thing. You can play pinball on your phone, but it’s not the same,” Polka said. “You don’t get the feel of the buttons, you don’t get the feedback from shaking the machine, and no two games of pinball are alike.”

Kaczmarczyk, who practices at least once a day and drives to Pittsburgh for weekly tournaments, now qualifies for the IFPA national tournament in Las Vegas.

At his Beaver County home, he has more than 80 pinball machines — 20 of which he bought on his own. They range in price from $500 to $1,000 for used, older versions to more than $5,000.

He said he’ll most likely spend his $1,500 prize as state champion toward acquiring another one.

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